Help with raised bed please.

[2020hello]

I'm creating a raised bed and love the idea of tulips but the spacing says they should be a certain distant apart is this true? I'd love them to be close and loads of flowers in there?

Also how can I plant it so I have all year flowers? If I plant snowdrops, iris, tulips, etc can I just get the varieties and then plant them how I would like them for that season even if they will be close to other bulbs for another season?

Sorry I'm a total novice and only just started getting into gardening.

TIA

In my experience tulips don’t last long!

Oh no I love tulips!

Tulips, snowdrops etc are spring bulbs, they don't flower all year round I'm afraid. You can buy summer flowering bulbs too.

Oh sorry that's what I meant so in 1 bed I plant a variety of bulbs some that flower in winter some that flower in spring and then some that flower in summer. So I'd have spring flowering bulbs planted next to wi term flowering bulbs, would that be ok? That they would be so close?

I was watching gardeners world this morning about tulips. They were placing them a few inches apart. But when I plant mine in pots, they are closer to each other and still do fine. So I think it just depends on the amount of space available. If you have space, use it. Tulips looks lovely with some complimentary foliage plants too. If you check Sarah Raven, there is a guide on there for tulip planting which is quite good. But @DahliaDay was right, they do not last long.

With seasonal bulbs, you need to balance them out with perennials otherwise you will have large gaps in your bedding.
You can alternatively surround them with summer flowering bulbs - gladioli, alliums, anemone, lily, crocosmia too

If you watch gardeners world it will give you a lot of ideas of what to plant together and what bloom at what time so your garden is flowering all year round.

@reservoircats thank you so much for you post, very informative.
Off to research now, thank you.

I plant a load of tulip and daffodil bulbs which come up every year, then plant some pansies/dianthus around them etc for some colour later on in the year.
Dahlias flower each year, or I have a beautiful plant called an Argyranthemum madeira which blooms just after the daffs/tulips. Very low maintenance.

If the flower bed is against a wall, then sweet peas are colourful and come up every year.

So yes, I have a flower bed with multiple different plants that have different blooming times. Then I just buy a few brightly coloured plants each year to add some new colour.

I watched monty don do a version of this in containers.

He plants layers of bulbs and then the container flowers throughout the year. Can’t recall what he planted, but he did it like making lasagne, layer of dirt, bulbs, layer of dirt bulbs and so on till the top of the pot.

So yes you can plant different bulbs in the same pot or bed.

Don't plant crocosmia, unless you want your entire garden colonised by the stuff in about 3 years time!

Thank you all for your responses. I'm so glad I posted I have lots to look into now.

Found the lasagne method, now to find bulbs that I like too

I dont put tulips/daffs etc in my raised beds now as they leave a mess when you have to leave them to die down - I put mine as a lasagne in big pots then I can shove them behind something when they are done.

I do put alliums in there though as I love them coming up through wallflowers and the like. I have dahlias in there too that take over in the summer proper.

Bulbs are fantastic, but the problem is that after the flowers are finished the leaves look rubbish, but you have to let them keep growing if you want the plant to flower again next year, as the leaves are feeding the bulbs.

So that's why people do as ChristopherTracy says, and put tulips into pots to be enjoyed while they flower, then they can be hidden away as the leaves go yellow and tatty.

Also, some tulips are much more reliable about coming back year after year, and others just disappear mysteriously after one year.

As to your original question, bulbs can be much more crowded than the planting instructions say, but you get better results if they are layered up with space around them rather than all jostling each other in one layer.

I agree with pps who say get perennial plants as well as your lovely bulbs. Perhaps even some decorative grasses, or a small evergreen shrub? Something that trails over the edge of the raised bed? It depends what you like, and what growing conditions you have.

Thank you ! I haven't thought about leaves going tatty

I will have 1 raised bed 4.8m long which I wanted full of pretty things then I have 50cm pots which was going to be for my strawberries, raspberries blackberries and sweet peas.

Can I cover the bulb leaves with anything to hid the look at the end?

I would love some grasses at the back or hanging and I really wanted something evergreen, but theres so much to choose from it's all quite confusing.
If you have a recommendation for grasses which are also ever green that would be amazing? Please.

this is my favourite evergreen grass, but here are some other ideas

and this is a gorgeous silvery leaved shrub.

That website Crocus has some lovely combinations that you can buy as a ready mix, but you may be able to put them together for yourself more cheaply by shopping around, growing some from seed, etc.

Tulips don’t always come back well for a second year. They have a habit of producing baby bulbs and then getting overcrowded. Dwarf tulips are better from what I’ve read.

I put my big tulips in a pot to display for the first year, then put them into the flowerbed for future years, where they are more spread out and don’t cause a problem if they don’t flower.

Any clump forming perennial will hide the tulip leaves. I like aquilegia as it flowers at this time of year. Put the tulips behind it and then tuck the foliage down so you can’t see it as it dies back. Do the same with daffodils. You can put snowdrops and crocuses near the front of the bed and hide them with low perennials like campanula.