What can I plant on top of spring bulbs?

[Hobbes8]

We moved into our house a couple of years ago and haven't done very much with the front and back gardens apart from put out a couple of pots.

There's a flower bed at the front with some overgrown greenery that I'd like to dig over and plant some spring bulbs, but I'd like some kind of plant in there so it's not just a bare bed the rest of the year. It needs to be something fairly hardy and foolproof. I was thinking of some Fuschia but it doesn't seem to be the right time of year. Any ideas? It's quite an open spot - north west facing but not really shaded by the house so gets a good amount of sun.

This year my wife grew Cosmos, for the first time, and they have been flowering profusely for months. Also she bought me three Heuchera plants, of different varieties which are super:

www.fuchsiaflower.co.uk/index.htm

www.heucheraholics.co.uk/

www.almanac.com/plant/cosmos

I didn't want to be the first to post as I have no experience ,but for what it's worth ,I've planted violas and some forgetmenots that I've moved .Because they self seed and grow like weeds .

Heucheras look fab ,and now ,thanks to Ferguson I'm looking at thos lovely fuschias !

I would recommend these easy to maintain shrubs. They are not too big and flower at various times of the year:

Viburnum tinus 'Gwenlian'
Choisya ternata
Abelia grandiflora
Ceanothus thyrsiflorus repens
Osmanthus
Hebe 'Great Orme'

Bulbs will come up in between with no trouble.

I also recommend Heucheras too as they are evergreen. Liriope for a bit of variety. If you want autumn and winter colour plant some winter flowering pansies. See here www.gardening-tips-online.com/winter-flowering-pansies/

Hang on - let me get the question straight in my head (slow on the uptake here)... are you asking 'what can I plant with spring bulbs, i.e. behind and around them' or 'what can I plant on top of spring bulbs to grow in the exact same place'?

I would give you very, very different recommendations for each of those scenarios!!

Ooh replies! Thank you very much everyone. I will check out those suggestions.

Holly I mean the first one. I think! I had in mind that I would dig over the flower bed in the garden, which is pretty neglected and weedy, plant some bulbs to come up in the spring, then plant some kind of ready grown shrub or perinnials so the flower bed has something in now, and then the bulbs will come up in the gaps. Does that make sense?

I'm not much of a gardener, having mostly lived in rented flats. My aunt very kindly grew me lots of plants when I moved into my old house, and I did ok with them (lots of geraniums, fuschias - quite hardy things I think) but we had a fire and everything in the garden perished. It was a bit disheartening!

This house has front and back gardens and is a bit of a blank canvas, so I thought I'd start simple with one bed and some bulbs and build up from there, but I've only really planted things in the spring before.

Thanks again for all your helpful suggestions.

Gosh, I'm sorry about the fire. Sounds traumatic.

You could grow loads of different things in an unshaded north-west facing bed! The plant world is your oyster, really. I would think about putting one load of stuff in now (perhaps shrubs, evergreens to give you winter interest and structure) and another load in the spring (hardy perennials).

Think about your design - classic beds tend to have larger things towards the back, smaller things at the front (but this is a rule made to be broken, especially in curvier gardens). How large do you want the bigger things to be? Is there room for a small ornamental tree, because it's getting towards the time when those can be planted too, or is the bed too close to the house?

Ooh I didn't think of a tree! The bed runs alongside the driveway, so the road end wouldn't be too close to the house. It borders our neighbours drive though so we'd need to think about things that need too much pruning.

The fire wasn't too traumatic, thank you, as we were out and missed the whole thing! We lost our shed and fences and all the planting we'd done was ruined, but the house was fine apart from one warped window frame. It just took ages to sort out on the insurance, and I was a bit put off doing the whole thing again, so we just turfed it and put out a few pots of bedding plants. I had one summer of pretty good gardening though!

Do join the potting shed thread Hobbes8!
I'm sorry about the fire
shovethe holly is right, the world is your oyster!
You could plant a little apple tree or a magnolia or a morello cherry tree and the bulbs underneath to flower before the leaves come out, some summer flowering camassia, and autumn cyclamen and crocuses.

You could have a grass border with miscanthus and calamagrostis and asters and japanese anemones as they die back in winter and come up after the bulbs have flowered.

Or you could have hardy perennials such as geranium rozanne, astrantia, lupins etc because they all come up after the bulbs have flowered too!

The colour palatte of the garden changes with the seasons: in spring there will be yellows and blues, then the tulip colours and forgetmenots, then the summer pinks and purples and autumn can be either yellows and oranges or blues depending. Planting stuff in the same place to provide a succession around the year is called 'succession planting' you can google it!

Anyway, the other point is to think about the vertical interest and foliage and shape of the plant. A lot of beginners end up with little or medium size plants dotted about and no structural or vertical interest

I'm really excited about trees now! My husband will probably just roll his eyes and let me get on with it. I'm quite keen on sorting out the garden because I love lots of bright colours together, and it seems like the one place where you can run riot!

I like the sound of this riot in the garden .

I just want to say AMELANCHIER before anyone else gets there on the tree front. (Though you could also think about a lovely small ornamental flowering cherry - there are some absolute stunners out there). Or you could get one that has lovely fruit if you want to grow productively (Stella has a really good flavour). Just make sure you check heights and rootstocks if you go for a fruiting cherry - a Gisella G5 will give you a very small and manageable tree, but it may be a bit fussy and will need a big ole stake (I'd still probably go for this, though). A Gisella G6 will be bigger but tougher - a Colt may be too big.

That is good advice about trees!
I do like fruiting trees in a garden if you have the sun to ripen the fruit!
I am reading Christopher Lloyd on succession planting. He says some daffodils are better than others when it comes to succession planting and the best ones are the narrow leaved ones as they are not so invasive. He recommends planting anemone Blanda under Hostas as they come up before the hostas come up and then the hostas protect the anemones from being disturbed when the hosta leaves come out,
He also says that day lilies are good to plant with daffodils as they come up after the daffodilks are over.
He probably says a lot besides but I havent yet read the whole book!

Those are some inspired suggestions. I do like Christopher Lloyd's books. I have the colour one and sometimes if I feel a bit low, I just look at the pictures for a while.

I am a bit at the diversity of daffodils that there are. Not just in terms of form, shape, colour but in terms of flowering time. You could honestly have some in flower from December right through til almost June. Apparently, though, there are real daffodil nuts out there who go to crazy lengths to collect them. My Dad discovered a 'new' wild daffodil, and it has been ratified and named by the RHS and everything, but we are not allowed to tell anyone where it is because otherwise these people may come and dig it all up... and effectively there will be none left for anyone else in its natural habitat. I just felt a bit sick when he told me - why would anyone do something so utterly selfish as to monopolize a plant? Surely the wonder of gardening is that you can divide and share for free?!

Apologies for thread derail.

Well the thing is, shove, that humankind has a nasty as well as a nice side.

I think it is rather amusing to hold a state secret regarding a daffodil!

Didn't Carol Klein do a daffodil special on gw once? I'm sure you are right about having them in flower over months. Other types of flower are the same eg crocuses, salvias, tulips. I like lots of plants but if I were a purist I might go for fewer plant types but different varieties.