Garden bulbs

[Thatwentbadly]

I’m clueless about garden bulbs. I want to plant some bulbs in my raised beds so I have pretty flowers which appear every year and throughout the year without much effort needed after they’ve been planted. What do I need to know please?

I cannot claim expertise, I have done it this year for the first time. I bought a mixed box and followed the instructions about planting depth and distance apart, and now I'm hoping for the best. I planted them according to likely plant height but the. Kind of dropped them on the ground and planted them where they fell in the flower bed for a natural look. I hope you get more expert advice too.

There are spring and summer flowering bulbs. Obviously spring ones flowering now. In general spring ones are planted in the Autumn, deadheaded after flowering and the leaves are allowed to die down.
At the moment you could buy the bulbs in flower, in pots and plant them in your garden.
Summer flowering bulbs are on sale from spring onwards, so you could get some now and basically the same care is involved.
However, sometimes the bulbs rot in the ground, are eaten by squirrels or just fail to flower, so year after year display is not always guaranteed. Some people lift the bulbs after flowering and replant them the next year.

My tip would be you always need more bulbs than you think to make a worthwhile display (if they're not just popping up around the garden in between other things).

If you plant snow drop, crocus, daffodil, iris, tulip and allium you’ll have flowers from December through to September.

You need to plant 100’s! - I did over 500 per square metre last year and they look fabulous now.