Playing matchmaker in the garden is enjoyable, according to Roozen, whose family has been involved in Dutch gardening for five generations. For ever-changing foliage and flowers from early spring to late fall, “you want to choose blooming partners for all seasons, including plants that will bloom together and those that bloom in succession.”
Roozen’s favourite horticultural unions include the following:
Spring hue:
* Asiatic lilies and tulips. Plantings of vibrant Darwin Hybrid or Single Late tulips should be combined with Asiatic lilies for a striking spring effect that will take on a second life in the summer. The tulips will blossom in vibrant pinks, yellows, oranges, reds, purples, and white around the middle to end of spring. The Asiatic lilies will bloom in the middle of summer, but their foliage will first develop in the spring, providing a base layer of green beneath the tulip blooms. Lilies replace the fading tulips and continue to grow taller to hide the tulip foliage as it ages. Lilies rule in midsummer, blooming in vibrant shades of pink, red, yellow, and orange.
* Purple companions and pink daffodils. The best complement to pink daffodils are perennials with colourful foliage. Try pairing dark-leaved Huechera ‘Purple Palace’ with pink Narcissus ‘Passionale (coral bells). Other plants that go well with pink daffodils include purple or pink common foxgloves, lavender cowslips, Tiarella cordifolia (foam flower), and different perennial geraniums.
* Purple, dark crimson, and grey. The more subdued hues of grey, red, and purple can be rather startling for those accustomed to broad swathes of red and yellow splattered across the springtime landscape. Try tulips like the deep pink T. “Peer Gynt” with the dark maroon T. “Black Parrot” and T. “Burgundy” for effect. Include purple Salvia officinalis ‘Berggarten,’ broad-leaved sage, and dark red Astrantias ‘Claret’.
* Vivid blue, green, and white. Try pairing the equally variegated Hosta fortunei ‘Albopicta’ with the Viridiflora tulip ‘Spring Green,’ which is white flushed with green stripes, for a look that achieves high notes of variegated vigour. Siberian bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla), yellowish-green lady’s mantle (Alchemilla), and Geranium x magnificum should be included. Set everything in a naturalised sea of camassia bulbs with their tall, greenish spires and delicate blue flowers that bloom for weeks on end in late spring for the pièce de résistance.
Summer hue:
Stunning hues of orange, yellow, and purple. Combine fiery purple Japanese iris with bright beds of Asiatic lilies in vibrant yellows and oranges.
* Yellow, green, and purple. Pair dark-foliaged Huechera ‘Purple Palace’ (coral bells) with frilly yellow Allium moly florets and tall sword-leafed Iris pseudocorus for early summer colour (yellow flag).
* Strong reds and pinks. It’s difficult to top a lily and clematis combo for mid-summer enthusiasm. Both return year after year, improving as they age. One electrifying combination combines non-fading fuchsia Asiatic lily “Cote d’Azur” with hot pink and white striped Clematis “Carnaby.”
* Cheery yellow and cheery orange. Rudbeckia triloba, also known as yellow black-eyed Susans, produce weeks of vibrant summer colour. Mix in some unexpected elements by interplanting tiger lilies (Lilium lancifolium). The “Susans” are surrounded by tall, thin lilies, each of whose orange petals have black spots and are twisted backward like paper lanterns.
* Sunny yellows and pinks. A delightful combination of mid- to late-summer blooms includes daisy-like pink and white coneflowers (Echinaecea) and garden phlox (Phlox paniculata), which are surrounded by a mixture of yellow yarrow (Achilla) and tall reed grass in wheat-colored hues (Calamagrostis). Add vibrant pink Oriental lilies named “Star Gazer” and “Vino,” orange tiger lilies, and “Autumn Joy” sedum to complete the design (whose tight green florets turn pink as autumn approaches).
To help anyone plant flower bulbs like a pro, here is a quick introduction from the Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center in New York City.
* Check the packaging. Whether you purchase your bulbs online or at your neighbourhood garden retailer, they typically come with instructions. Study them. And until planting, retain the label with the bulbs. The bulbs alone cannot distinguish between white and crimson tulips.
* Plant bulbs as soon as the ground is cool, between 40 and 50 degrees in the evening. Provided necessary, you can store bulbs for up to a month if you keep them in a cold, dry environment. But if in doubt, plant the bulbs in the ground. They won’t store until the next year.
* Place bulbs in well-draining soil. According to the Dutch, bulbs dislike damp feet. The sun is good for bulbs.
* Dig the soil into the planting bed until it is loose and workable. If the garden bed is new, there’s a good possibility the soil might use some organic matter, like compost or peat moss.
Put the pointed end down. The sharp end of a tulip is simple to identify. With a crocus, it’s more difficult. Even if you don’t do it perfectly, the bulb flower will typically still make it to the topside.
* The first year’s bloom does not require fertiliser. Food is naturally stored in bulbs. Spread an organic fertiliser, such as compost or well-rotted cow manure, or a slow-release bulb food on top of the soil for bulbs that are intended to naturalise or perennialize (return for several years), as well as for bulbs that are entering their second year.
* Avoid mixing fertiliser in the planting hole if you do fertilise. Roots can be burned by it. Don’t add bone meal, as per an old wives’ tale. Today’s bone supper offers little additional nourishment. Additionally, it can tempt pests and even dogs to dig up your bulbs in search of bones.
* Group your bulbs together. Don’t create a long, thin line along the walkway or plant one bulb by itself. For maximum impact, clusters provide a concentration of colour. Small clusters of bulbs can still provide a spectacular spring display even if you don’t have enough for a large bed.
* Place low-growing bulbs in front of taller ones. When it comes to bulbs that bloom at the same time, this is a sound general rule. You may find the plant’s height and an estimate of when it will flower on the label. Obviously, there are situations when this rule should be broken. Plant the tall bulbs in front, for instance, if the low-growing bulbs bloom first and the tall ones second. Their show will mask the tiny bulbs’ wilting foliage.
A double-decker effect can be used. On top of huge bulbs, you can plant little bulbs in a layer. Planting bulbs that bloom at the same time will produce an intriguing double-decker look (picture bright pink tulips blooming above cobalt blue muscari). Alternatively, you can create a spring display that blooms in succession by planting mid- and late-season bloomers together to stagger the bloom time.
Can you grow tulips among other plants?
When mixing perennials with tulips, take into account some perennials that, even though they might not bloom at the same time as the tulips, will conceal the tulips’ withering and discoloured foliage after they have completed flowering. An illustration would be daylilies.
Around tulips that are just beginning to emerge from the ground, plant annuals. In the spring, tulips advance fast to the blossoming stage, especially in warm weather. The annual flowers will be prepared for the opening of the tulip blossoms if they are already in bloom.
What can I grow over tulips?
A reader has the following inquiry:
Any recommendations for perennials that may be planted alongside spring bulbs this fall and that will appear after the tulips and daffodils bloom, cover their leaves, and then gradually turn yellow? Along the wall of my carport, in a south-facing area with plenty of sun and sufficient drainage.
Last year, I discussed Claudia Kolbe-method Hawthorne’s for creating waves of colour in her garden beds in the Cheektowaga neighbourhood of Cleve-Hill. Hyacinths, daffodils, and a profusion of vibrant tulips are among her blooms.
Around the bulbs, she grows perennials like columbine, dianthus, coneflowers, coreopsis, and sedum so that those plants can conceal the withering leaves. Visit this location to take a tour of her spring garden.
Do you have any other recommendations for perennial plants to place around your spring bulbs? If so, kindly comment below for Val.
So when someone asks me a question that I am unable to answer, I post it and rely on my viewers to contribute their knowledge. Please leave a remark below if you have any suggestions for Val. Check back later to read the comments if you’re interested in learning the solution to this query.
Asking Master Gardeners with Cornell Cooperative Extension or visiting your neighbourhood garden centre are more effective ways to have your questions answered.
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With lilies, what can be planted?
The following shallow-rooted annuals do well with lilies:
- Cosmos.
- Dianthus.
- Dill.
- Geraniums.
- Marigold (shorter varieties)
- Pansy.
- Snapdragons (dwarf)
- Zinnias.
Can other flowers be grown on top of bulbs?
Winter annuals like pansies (Viola x wittrockiana) and snapdragons (Antirrhinum majus) are some of the best flowers for flower beds to add colour to an otherwise drab landscape throughout the winter months. Both of these plants can be put over the top of fading bulbs. In Mediterranean climes, snapdragons and pansies are both regarded as winter annuals. Even so, when cultivated as perennials, their hardiness varies. Snapdragons thrive in USDA hardiness zones 7 through 10, whereas pansies do best in zones 6 through 8.
Can I combine different bulbs in one planting?
The Dutch describe layering flower bulbs in their world-famous gardens as making a “flower bulb lasagna,” which is the key to creating massive floral displays in a small area. Once you are certain that it is safe to proceed, the process is easy. Choose the types of bulbs you wish to layer first. First go in the biggest bulbs that need to be buried the deepest. Plant the next-sized bulbs at the next depth after adding a few inches of soil. Simply keep adding dirt between the bulb layers as you go if you are planting three or four layers.
As roots, sprouting branches, and leaves develop, they inevitably look for unobstructed areas to expand through. To reach the sunlight and free space above, the top growth will wiggle between the bulbs above. There is no reason to be concerned when employing this technique with various types of bulbs, despite the fact that some plants will root into a flower bulb to steal its nutrients. All bulbs can develop and bloom because flowering bulbs get along well with other bulbs.
Can you grow different flowers on top of tulip bulbs?
Is it possible to grow another flower on top of my dormant tulips? The front of my house’s garden has some unsightly gaps in it. Thanks,
Thanita from Ashburn, Virginia
Mike: The reasons we Americans (as opposed to those in Holland) have trouble getting our spring bulbs to bloom year after year are, according to what I overheard you mention last spring:
- We drastically over-earnest the green, nourishing portion of the bulb and
- If we grow annual flowers on top of our bulbs, they receive an excessive amount of watering and fertilising.
Your recommendation was to dig up the bulbs once the greenery had withered back and layer them in a pot, according to kind, with alternating layers of peat and vermiculite to keep the layers apart. You suggested, I believe, that they should still be watered, just not more frequently than a typical rainfall schedule would allow. So I took action. However, when I went looking for confirmation on the Internet, the data I discovered suggested that it would just cause the bulbs to rot and serve as a buffet for neighbourhood field mice and/or squirrels (and deer if they found the container). I gave the collection one “watering”; after that, they only received rain. How did I do?
Hockessin, Delaware’s Tina
A. Tina, you mainly got it correct. The irrigation section was the one you misheard the most. I HOPE I mentioned to only let the rain hit the container they are in and NOT to add ANY water.
However, let’s go back to the beginning. One of the best interview guests we’ve ever had on the programme, British gardening writer Anna Pavord, gave us this piece of advise while she was on tour in 2000 in support of her stunning book “The Tulip,” which was published in 1999. I remarked during the interview that one of our most frequent inquiries was over the reliability of tulip returns. That’s because you Americans plant annual flowers on top of the bulbs and then water and Miracle-Grow the crap out of them, rotting the poor bulbs underground, she immediately said.
She explained that Spring bulbs have evolved to live in their native mountains of Russia, Turkey, and Afghanistan in a harsh and largely God-forsaken environment. The bulbs that have been hiding put up their shoots, flower, and absorb a lot of solar energy when heavy snow and freezing cold eventually give way to a rather comfortable Spring. After that, the above-ground growth fades away, and the bulbs hide once more, this time from a dry, sweltering summer.
Therefore, according to Pavord, their DNA does not understand the moisture and food of summer; instead, it understands scorching, dry, and desolate. They don’t respond well to beds that are watered and nourished throughout the summer to keep marigolds, begonias, or petunias alive for that reason.
She continued by saying that because she, too, had a small garden and didn’t want to leave her bulb beds vacant for the summer, she had to learn this lesson the hard way. She began lifting the bulbs, preserving them for the summer, and replanting them in the fall as soon as she realised what was happening. She assured me and my audience that it functioned admirably and had a good deal of room for mistake.
It worked the first time I attempted it that summer and every summer after. I never repeated it exactly the same manner. The first year, when the greens on the bulbs had faded, I pulled them out and moved them to the back of the garden, out of sight and away from the sprinkler. I hammered together a bottomless box out of scrap wood, filled it halfway with soil, then added a layer of one type of bulb, more soil, more bulbs, etc., until it was completely full. Only when it rained did it get irrigated. And I covered it with a tarp when we experienced protracted rainy spells. I removed them in the middle of October, planted them again around Halloween, and had fantastic results.
After a few years, the box completely rotted away, so I transferred to large pots that were initially just plain ugly and had never gotten any prettier. This also functions well. If I have it, I will occasionally add a considerable amount of peat, vermiculite, perlite, or a fine, light professional potting soil blend; if not, I will simply use my compost-enriched garden soil. I’ve never lost more than a few items to rot due to mice or squirrels invading, either (and they were probably already damaged by my tender digging-up style, which involves a lot of creative swearing). Although I adore the picture of Bambi digging through several inches of soil in search of hidden riches, I don’t believe that even deer are that stupid.
Here is how I intend to make my Spring bulbs bloom again:
- Remove the faded blooms and any developing seedpods when they have finished blooming.
- Feed the plants so they will grow new flowers for you the following year. There are numerous feeding instructions in our earlier Spring bulb Question of the Week.
- Wait until the greens have totally lost their green hue before touching them.
- Remove the bulbs. The ideal method is to slowly coax the bulb out of the ground after it goes tan or brown while gently pulling on the faded greens. Go digging if it breaks off, but exercise caution.
- The degreened bulbs should be kept outside in a container with excellent drainage, either in the sun or the shade, in soil, soilless mix, or a mixture of both. Do not water them, and if it is raining a lot, cover the container.
- In the autumn, replant. In the far north, that would be September; in the mid-Atlantic, October; and in warm climates, after Thanksgiving.