Planting bulbs for the spring, in planters

I promised myself I wouldn’t disturb the garden too much in the first twelve months, so as to see what might spring to life that might otherwise have been dug up and destroyed. And so, with planters provided by my friend Gwenfar, I have put together some layered bulbs.

First I added drainage, because the planters don’t have that many holes:

Then I added the tulips and narcissus, quite close together at times, because I just didn’t have that much compost either:

At the end, on the two square planters, I planted some iris bulbs along the edge facing the house, for a bit of low colour. Here’s the end result; by this time the rain had started to set in:

From left to right, the planting is:

• Green pot:
  • Narcissus “Pipit”
  • Tulipa “Temple of Beauty”
• Terracotta-coloured planter:
  • Iris “Blue Note”
  • N Delnashaugh
  • T “Temple of Beauty”
• Grey, squat planter:
  • I “Blue Note”
  • N “Pipit”
  • T “Antoinette”
• Grey pot with handles:
  • N “Delnashaugh”
  • T “Christmas Exotic”

The repetition was a result of only having ordered so many varieties of bulbs (almost too many for the pots, though); hopefully, it’ll lead to a bit of a fugue effect, with different colours and forms at different times in different places.

In retrospect, and having seen how Gwenfar plants hers, I’d have added some crocus and pansy to the mix, for winter and early-spring colour. But that’s a lot to be going on with already!