Spring bulbs, Summer bulbs, Fall bulbs – how confusing can it be? It’s really not that confusing. The season the flower grows and blooms, is the season of the bulb. Spring bulbs, although planted in the Fall, come out of the ground and bloom in the Spring. Hence Spring bulbs. Summer bulbs are planted in the Spring and bloom in the Summer. Hence Summer bulbs. Fall bulbs? Well there really isn’t a Fall bulb. Some people call Spring bulbs Fall bulbs because they plant them in the Fall but that’s not accurate.
As you may remember, I planted a ton of Spring bulbs back in October and November. 2083 to be exact. Here is the blog post that talks about them. They are all up and about to pop their pretty flower blooms open. Most of the daffodils are already open and some of the hyacinth. The tulips are not far behind.
Now that it is Spring, I am planting Summer bulbs. Summer bulbs work the same way as Spring bulbs. You plant them once, and they come back year after year. There are a lot more Summer bulb varieties available then Spring bulbs. Some of the bulbs that are available now are lilies, dahlias, cannas, begonias, gladiolus, and many others.
I just love gladiolus. My mom used to have them in her garden when I was growing up. I have some in my garden already but I wanted to create a new bed along the side of the vegetable garden and fill it with these bulbs. Let me show you how I did that.
The fence line along the side of the garden is 52 feet. As you can see, my vege garden still needs some spring cleanup, especially those asparagus fronds that did not get cleaned up last Fall.
My yard is full of rocks, all different sizes. I use them a lot in creating flower beds and walk ways and whatever other use I can find for them. I had a bunch of rocks in this area that had been chucked out of the garden area when it was revamped. I used those rocks and stacked them upon each other and formed the side of a flower bed the entire length of the garden fence. I pulled out all of the dried asparagus and grasses and cleaned it up a bit.
Since there were some spring grasses beginning to grow in that area, I then layered 3-5 sheets of newspaper inside the bed on top of the dirt to smother the grasses and weeds. I wet the newspaper down real well and topped it with a layer of garden soil. The newspapers will suppress and kill the weeds underneath them for the most part. There will be some sneaking through near the fence and the rocks but those will be easy to deal with compared to a whole bed full.
On top of the soil I placed my flower bulbs pointy side up. I bought 2 packages of 75 mixed gladiolus bulbs thinking 150 bulbs would be plenty. Wrong. I had to go and buy more. I placed the bulbs pretty close together. About 4-5 inches apart kind of in a zigzag design. I wanted the flowers to fill in the back of this area. I will plant an annual in the front when the weather warms up a bit more.
Once the bulbs were laid out the way I wanted them, I topped them off with more dirt to fill the bed. The bulbs sit about 6-8 inches deep which is what the planting directions indicate is proper. I then watered them in and the rain watered them in more. One thing I did not do, because I forgot, was to add a bit of fertilizer to the dirt underneath the bulbs. I think they will be fine as the dirt has a good mix of composted manure in it, however, I may mix some bulb fertilizer into the soil around the bulbs just for good measure. If I do that, I will be sure to water it well so the fertilizer dissolves and gets down to the roots of the bulbs.
The gladiolus will flower in about 10-12 weeks. If I wanted to extend the flowering, I could have planted some every two weeks or so until the beginning of summer which would give me new flowers every two weeks until the last ones planted bloom. I just may purchase some more and plant another row or two to prolong my blooms. I’ll let you know on an update how many bulbs end up in this bed of flowers.
Have you planted Summer bulbs yet? Do you have any plans to? Start a new tradition and plant some Summer bulbs in your garden this Spring and sit back and watch them bloom year after year.