Spring bulbs!

[mamatilly]

I am thinking about ordering some bulbs to plant in the lawn- common snowdrops and english bluebells. It would be so beautiful to have tiny flowers end of winter, plus bluebells are simply divine.

Any thoughts / good sources of bulbs?

I get my bulbs from here

Don't think you can order bulbs in the green yet - December I think.

I thought about doing this but won't it ruin the lawn?

taffecat thanks for link - looks great and much better value than my other supplier - plse could you advise a novice - what does 'in the green' mean and is it better to buy this way than simply bulbs?

Cornsilk we have a patch of lawn that i shall just leave until the bulbs have finished their flowering and also an orchard area where we are hoping for a wildflower meadow eventually.

I get mine from [www.dejager.co.uk De Jager], and the quality is excellent - the bulbs are large, so that you get good flowering in the first year, and often offset bulbs very quickly in subsequent years. I don't know if they do bluebells and snowdrops though.

'In the green' means that they are actively growing when you get them, rather than being sold as dry bulbs like daffodils. Some bulbs, including snowdrops and bluebells, need to be sold in the green, not dry.

Camassia naturalise quite nicely in grass, if you're looking for colour in your orchard for longer.

Very small daffodils look nice when they naturalize in grass, and snake-head fritillaries.

Snowdrops prefer to be near trees, and need to be planted in small clumps.

What about crocus?

Or scilla?

The other thing to do is plant a large tub with layers of succession bulb planting and put it outside your door - that way you get the flowers without the long unkempt grass after.

I get all mine from J Parker commercial catalogue, but the minimum order is something like £100 I think - I club together with friends.

Bear in mind that you won't be able to cut the grass for ages after the bulbs stop flowering if you want to get a decent display the following year, as the leaves need to be left to send goodness back down into the bulb in preparation for the dormant period.

Snake's head fritillaries are gorgeous - prefer damp meadowy type grass.

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re 'in the green' - does this mean the flowers are delivered as shoots? in flower? and then i plant them in garden before flowering ? after flowering?

the catalogue i have just has bulbs for bluebells and snowdrops and doesn't mention 'in the green' at all...

grendelsmum mentions good flowers in first year of large bulbs, then good 'offset bulbs' - plse could you explain?!

thankyou i am a complete novice but would so love pretty bluebells and snowdrops in my garden next season!

Hi Mamatilly - bulbs in the green are usually delivered after they have flowered, so they will have leaves but no flowers until spring 2012! Snowdrops you do really need to get in the green otherwise they dry out really quickly once they are lifted and won't grow well. So I would avoid the catalogue which doesn't have them as in the green.

Bulbs like snowdrops, which you want to naturalise, will produce small offset bulbs when they have settled in. The offset bulbs are small "baby" bulbs which form off the parent bulb. These will then take a year or two (depending on variety) to get to flowering size and this is how bulbs naturalise and increase.

I think you will be alright with bluebells as bulbs rather than in the green - I've had success this way previously.

It is really worth your while shopping around (search on Google) as prices can vary enormously. Also, you want to go for the ordinary single snowdrop Galanthus nivalis. You should be able to buy these in 50s and 100s. There are some very rare and expensive snowdrop varieties which can be quite a collector's item, and sell for ridiculous sums of money.

When you do get your snowdrops, you will need to lift the clumps every couple of years and divide them up and plant them into more clumps, otherwise the clumps get very congested and flowering suffers.

You could put crocus in your lawn - some varieties (tommasianus etc) will naturalise well and you can plant these as dry bulbs. Just make some holes in teh lawn with a fork and drop them in!

Hope this helps!

thankyou for your explamation, western wind, i am starting to understand now , but just to clarify you said, 'snowdops dry out quickly once they are lifted and won't grow well'

why would i lift them?!! i will just pop them in ground and leave them to flower!!!

Hi - no, I mean the bulb companies that sell the snowdrops as dry bulbs, not you! They can be kept like this for months before they are planted (whilst they are processed and are in the shop/nursery waiting to be bought). When they are in the green they are still in growth so won't dry out as they are mainly lifted to order by the supplier and then you plant them straight away on receipt.

thanks western wind, i am such a novice with the gardening - sometimes terminolgy goes woosh way over my head!!!

i think i will order some dry bulbs and will also some in the green, then i can see both in action!