Fork it! - October 2011
Buffeted by the remnants of tropical hurricanes, we have not enjoyed an Indian summer nor even – as Keats put it - “mists and mellow fruitfulness” so far this autumn. However there are no uncertainties as to the season when it comes to the gardening companies and nurseries, because for them autumn means one thing – BULBS. Emails, catalogues and banners exhort me to “plant now for spring colour”. Good grief, it’s no wonder that most of us complain that time seems to speed up when we reach adulthood, as we are constantly worrying about the future and planning our lives away!
Unfortunately that is part and parcel of being a gardener in a temperate climate, as we always have to think three to six months ahead to take into account the four distinct seasons and plants’ growing cycles. The important thing is to take time to enjoy the fruits of our labours, to look around us in, say, six months’ time and really appreciate the spring colour we have created.
Anyway, enough of this philosophising, what about the bulbs? It is such a huge subject that one column will not do it justice and so I shall also cover it in the November issue of “The Bay”. Because, despite the screaming urgency of all the marketing material, many bulbs can be planted in late autumn, even winter, if they flower in late April/ May.
The vast range of spring-flowering bulbs means that you can have something in bloom in the garden from the snowdrops and crocuses of February to the lily-flowered tulips of May. What most attracts people to growing bulbs is their easy cultivation – just plant them in small holes according to the instructions and let nature take its course. They would seem to be perfect plants, but there is a downside (there always is) and that is what to do with the foliage after flowering has finished. The plant needs to photosynthesise to create the bulb for the following year, so the leaves – which are its “food factory” – must not be cut or tied up until they have turned yellow-brown, which can take 6 weeks. In a mixed border, other plants can be grown around the bulbs to hide the dying foliage, but this takes some planning and plants don’t always grow in the direction we want them to take!
One answer to the problem is to grow the bulbs in an area where they can naturalise and the dying foliage will be disguised by the grass growing around it. Most people already do this with the smaller flowers such as snowdrops and crocuses but, if you have the space, it is the best way to grow many other bulbs. Daffodils and narcissi look much better as drifts of yellow and white rather than a few stiff specimens growing forlornly in a bed. After they have flowered, you just have to mow around the patches of longer grass until their leaves have died off. Despite the attractive catalogues however, I won’t be buying any daffodils or narcissi this year, as we already have about two thousand – I know because I try to dead-head 100 a day as I walk the dog in late March and April and I never get to finish the task!
