bulbs

It's time to be thinking about planting bulbs.  Actually, it was time to be thinking about planting daffodils a month ago, as they naturally start into growth by the end of August, but my Peter Nyssen order didn't arrive until while we were on holiday, and today is the first I've had time to do anything about it.

I placed the order back in early June, and at the time I had a clear plan of where every variety was going to go.  Unfortunately I have since forgotten it, and lost the piece of paper it was written on.  I'd pretty much forgotten what I'd ordered, so it came as a nice surprise opening the box to see what was in it.  Lots of tulips, several varieties of daffodils, some alliums, hyacinths, and a few bits and bobs.

The daffodils are all starting off in pots.  The longer term intention is to grow them in the ground, since in my experience daffodils don't seem to like being in pots for more than a single season.  I've managed to fit them into square one litre pots so far, or even 11cm for the smallest bulbs.  This means that they aren't planted as deep as they should be, so when I come to plant the potfuls out in the garden I'll need to bury them a bit deeper.  Weather and other garden jobs permitting, they'll go into the ground in March, once I can see what other bulbs are coming up and avoid spearing them.  I think the original plan was to put them in the long bed in the front garden.  At any rate, if that wasn't the original idea it's a perfectly good one, and I have time to change my mind again before March.  The long bed already contains Muscari, various sorts of bulbous iris, and hyacinths, planted out each year after doing duty for one season in pots.  I thought it could still do with more spring interest, and I was trying to think of places where the daffodils might do well.  They are mostly dwarf varieties, and don't want to be overwhelmed by other plants before their leaves have finished growing for the year.

There were two bags of ten hyacinth bulbs, allowing five each for four pots to go in the Italian garden.  I see that this year I've gone for the variety 'Minos' which is described as blue-violet.  I can't honestly remember why I chose that one, but it must have sounded desirable when I looked into it.  I haven't tried it before.  The hyacinths and daffodils are starting off inside the greenhouse, in case we have another dire winter.  I used to leave the hyacinth pots outside, and they were fine for many years, until the year before last when most of their basal plates rotted.  I had better set some mouse bait, however, since last year quite a few pots of small bulbs were dug up and eaten inside the shelter of the greenhouse.

I've bought some Anemone nemorosa, the wood anemone.  These look desperately unpromising when they arrive, a small plastic bag with little sections of black rhizome in it, like pieces of shoelace.  I've started them off like that before, and I think I got a pretty good strike rate.  At £3.50 for 25 pieces of root it is a much cheaper way of getting plants than buying them in growth from a garden centre.  I have a feeling that I may have read somewhere that A. nemorosa tended to be easier in garden cultivation than A. sylvestris, the snowdrop anemone, but I'm not sure about that.  I know I spent some happy evenings reading up on it all when placing the order, so I must have convinced myself at the time that Anemone nemorosa would be a good thing.

I've also started bringing the pots of tender things in from the Italian garden, to over-winter frost free.  The only problem is that the greenhouse is already desperately crowded.  Some of the pelargoniums that didn't do well this year, and were kept from last year, are going to go on the compost heap, and I'll start again with new vigorous plants in the spring.  I weeded and tidied the pots as I brought them in, and found several Geranium maderense seedlings in them, that had sown themselves from the plants that flowered this year.  I potted three up, slightly unceremoniously since a seed bed congested with pelargonium roots isn't the easiest medium to dibble seedlings out of.  If they survive they'll be my replacement plants for the year after next.  G. maderense generally dies after flowering, though not always, but is very generous with its seed.  My stock came originally from plants in the courtyard of the V&A, which had conveniently set seed and not yet been cleared away.