Spring bulbs - help please

[GinAndOnIt]

You may have seen my other thread which proves how much of an amateur gardener I am, but the giant bush is in the process of being pulled out and I'm very excited!

I've got some spring bulbs which I'd like to plant in pots, but I'm wondering if there's a way to have summer growth in the pots once the spring flowers have finished.

Am I right in thinking I can't plant annuals on top of bulbs? So would I need to plant summer bulbs with the Spring bulbs? Next door have an area that had daffodils followed by fushias, is that how they would have done it? I bloody hate fushias though so I don't want them!

Also, if I do need to plant summer bulbs, when do I plant them? The Spring ones need to be planted by the end of the month apparently?

I'd say you have until end of November to plant spring bulbs, but you could probably get away with it even in early December. Summer bulbs can go in from March, once the soil is beginning to warm up (they will rot otherwise).

The main reason I'd say not to plant annuals on top of bulbs is the soil will be completely spent by the time the bulbs go over, plus you would have the bulb foliage dying back while your annuals are trying to grow.

To be honest most annuals grow so quickly (it's in their nature, they have to do the whole flowering and seeding cycle in a year or less), you can take the bulbs out, renew the soil and plant your annuals and they will soon catch up.

What do I do with the bulbs while I plant the annuals? Is there an easier way to have colour in the pots after the spring flowers are gone? I love spring flowers, but I don't want to spend the summer looking at pots of soil particularly!

If it si an option, you could rotate the pots and simply put them away when the bulbs go dormant. If you want to reuse you pots, then just take the bulbs out when the leaves are turning yellow. Keep them in a dry place during the summer and plant them back in the fall.

For an easier way, well I had 2 neighbors that planted artificial flower between flowering seasons. Not my taste, but quite a few people like it.

Put the bulbs in a cheap plastic pot that will fit inside your nice display pot. Once the flowers are finished, simply take the cheap pot out and put them somewhere out of the way whilst the foliage dies down. Then put another cheap pot of something else in your nice display pot, such as annuals that you've been growing from seed etc. Repeat this every year!

I find that pot-grown bulbs don't tend to do as well as those in the garden longer term. Even if you carefully feed them as they die back, they don't seem to thrive as well. So I tend to plant new bulbs each spring and pop the old ones into the main garden.

The 'fade' over the years is very rapid with some bulbs (tulips in particular).

Sorry, I meant to say I plant new spring bulbs each AUTUMN.

Well actually after reading the logistics of pots, I'm veering towards planting the Spring bulbs in the garden, possibly around the same areas I plant some alliums, and just have the pots for summer annuals. Can you tell I'm a lazy gardener?

I love tulips in a planter, but to my eye most other bulbs look nicer in the garden anyway!

Lazy is good

I would have a lawn of daffodils if I had my way! If I plant one Spring bulb and one summer bulb next to each other, would they 'take it in turns' or would they just not grow if they're close to something else?

In the ground I mean.

Gin, if I had a garden I'd far rather use all of it before I added the pots in. I dint think it's lazy at all.