Bulb novice - help please!

[cherryblossommorningstoday]

I am pretty (read that to mean completely) new to gardening. We finally had our garden landscaped and thanks to Mumsnet I've planted some lovely Heurchera in big planters.

I've also managed to purchase two very sad, very small (think twigs on sticks as my son said) trees for pots when left to my own devices with the internet.

So now I want to plant some bulbs around a wishing well border but I'm bewildered and would love a recommendation of a good online place to get them from please? I'm thinking daffodils and tulips but would love recommendations so there is a bit of colour next year for more than just a couple of weeks!

Also, how many do I plant please and how close together? How deep? (Can you tell I've not done this before)!

I would be hugely grateful for a supplier recommendation and info. on what and how!

Thanks so much to anyone who can help

I've had great success with bulbs from the pound shop, home bargains and B&M. I'm sure they work out a lot cheaper than the online sites.

I've also just had an enormous box of bulbs from effing Thompson & Morgan. I ordered 50 daffodils and 50 snowdrops. I recieved 200 alliums, 50 tulips, and 50 daffodils, but not the ones I asked for. Never ordering from them again, every order this summer has been a disaster.

Take a look at the special offers at J Parkers.

Google rhs planting bulbs for good advice

Tall tulips tend to only flower well the first year. After that I move them to a space in a flower bed. Dwarf tulips are better at coming back.

You can layer bulbs and choose them for different times of year.

Personally I don’t like the look of half dead foliage in a bulb patch. I plant bulbs under evergreens, or perennial plants that will grow up and hide the dying leaves in late spring.

Bulbs. Love them because they come back every year. You just plant them one bulb deep adjusted to whatever size they are. So you dig a hole, put the bulb in and there should be enough space to put another of that type bulb on top to reach level with the ground. So, you have that much earth above the bulb you just planted. Hope my English is not making a mess of this explanation.
Spacing is very individual to the bulb. In general I have found that bigger ones (size of garlic bulb) like to be a hand span (spread hand out and distance from tip of thumb to tip of smallest finger) away from others, but little ones can be planted only three fingers from each other.

Personally I don’t like the look of half dead foliage in a bulb patch. I plant bulbs under evergreens, or perennial plants that will grow up and hide the dying leaves in late spring.

Me too. I also have clumps of daffodils in my lawn. So I just mow around them when flowering and then over them when they die back and the lawn looks to be all grass.

Thanks everyone!

Oh gosh, dead foliage, that is a good point!

If I want to plant something else there as well that is evergreen, how does that work? Just leave gaps to put the bulbs?

You could plant them under your heucheras, for example. Spring flowering bulbs shoot up before your heucheras put out summer growth and then you can hide the fading foliage underneath. If in pots, no risk of you disturbing the bulbs too much either. Muscari are sweet pretty little flowers that will come back year after year and spread, too!

then you can hide the fading foliage underneath Remember the foliage is there for a purpose - to convert sunlight into energy to fuel all the internal processes. So don't be too enthusiastic about burying it.

Most bulbs have an indication of their flowering height. Round a wishing well I wouldn't choose anything much greater than 15cm (6 inches). That'll give you miniature daffodils, dwarf tulips and a lot of the delicate species tulips, as well as things like crocus, chionodoxa and scilla.

Plant each bulb so that there's (2xbulb height) soil above its tip.

In terms of flowering period, from Feb onwards
winter aconite
snowdrop
early daffodils, crocus
chionodoxa, scilla
tulips, grape hyacinths (Muscari)
latest flowering daffodils (the stiff white ones with a tiny orange and yellow trumpet)

It’s easier to put the bulbs in first then the other plants on top or in front of them. As pp said, make sure the leaves of the bulbs get sunshine but then they can be tucked away as they die down.

Heathers are a cheap and easy evergreen, or just google “dwarf evergreen plants” for lots of good ideas. I also like succulents for evergreen ground cover, or quick spreading plants like ajuga. They also keep the weeds down, and are easy to pull out if they get too dense.

Thanks so much everyone! I'm off the google.

Some lovely ideas.

Ground cover sounds good as we also have a road facing bank to cover!

Don't worry about your "twigs on sticks". Smaller trees establish better. What you see in the picture is not what you will unwrap, but it should be what you have in a year's time or so.

B&M have loads of bulbs at the moment at 3 packs for £5. Lots of varieties of daffs, tulips. crocus, alliums and iris.

Thanks, I will check out B&M!

Also thank you for the reassurance about my twigs on sticks! I will hope for great things next summer!