Tulip planting, beginner asking for advice

[Lily78123]

Hi all,

I’ve just bought some tulip bulbs, but after looking up on when to plant them it says October-November in the UK. Is that right? Where and how should I store them meanwhile? Complete novice in the garden so please don’t laugh at me :)

Lily - not a silly question at all.

I've just ordered some bulbs for my garden and it gives you something to look forward to for next spring.

Generally the colder the soil is when you plant your bulbs, the better it is for the bulbs and so that's why they tell you to wait until later in the year (as well as allowing all your other plants to finish flowering properly). You can store your bulbs in a cool dark place until then and they'll be fine until you're ready to plant.

I hope you have some lovely spring flowers next year . I've ordered tulips and crocuses for planting in pots and some winter pansies for colour until spring. Happy gardening!

Hi yes plant them at the end of October or beginning of November. You will be so glad next Spring you did this. Ps watch out for slugs in the Spring, a few of mine got munched as I took my eye off the ball.

So far I've bought hyacinths, crocuses, scilla, tulips and allium. I got these in the garden centre, I have had good results with Aldi spring bulbs but I haven't seen any in my local Aldi yet.

Also, try and plant when no squirrels are watching. They managed to dig up and eat most of mine.

Thanks all, I’ll put them in garage until ready to plant then. Good tips about squirrels and slugs.

When you do plant them, the rule of thumb is plant each bulb double it’s height below the surface. So you’d dig a hole and that bulb should only come halfway up. There’s guides that say so many cm and such but each bulb is not identical size and my gardening group gave me the above rule of thumb for ALL bulbs and it works great.