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Sally Nex

Tag Archives: spring bulbs

Bargain hunting

25 Monday Jan 2010

Posted by sallynex in container growing

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

bargains, shopping, spring bulbs

Off down the garden centre on a hot tip this weekend to find spring bulbs slashed to just 50p a packet!

I bought the lot, or at least one packet of every variety – that was 11 packets of bulbs for £5.50. For the first time in my life I think I understand the feral look in the eyes of those ladies you see elbowing each other out of the way in the January sales.

Got home and had a happy hour divvying them up into likely combinations according to predicted size and blooming times to go into containers on my patio.

I’m in good company planting them this late in the season, and in fact it seems I’m a bit slow on the uptake – it seems everyone else is well clued up on this bit of late-winter bargain hunting. The general consensus seems to be that since they’re a month or two late in the planting they’ll also be a month or two late flowering – but they will flower eventually. So I made a note of the dates they were meant to flower too so I can do a little experiment and find out just how late it makes them to plant at this time of year.

Now I have the following to look forward to, whenever they decide to show up:

Chionodoxa luciliae followed by Oxalis adenophylla

Puschkinia scilloides libanotica and Narcissus lobularis

Chionodoxa again, mixed colours this time, followed by Anemone blanda

Crocus chrysanthus var. fuscotinctus followed by Scilla siberica with a final flourish from mixed Ixia

Anemone coronaria ‘St Brigid’ possibly but not probably overlapping with Tulipa ‘Rococo’

The relative timings are, of course, a lottery, and who knows what will come up when. But that’s half the fun of it. Come to think of it, a lot more fun than doing it when you’re supposed to.

Spring has sprung

02 Monday Mar 2009

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

crocuses, spring bulbs

This is what’s been cheering me up over the weekend.


Yep – the sun is out, the birds are singing, the ground has finally dried and I’m gardening again!


As you can see I haven’t quite got round to the mulching yet but who cares?

I’m just happy to be outside again.

Anyone else noticed how particularly wonderful the snowdrops and crocuses (croci?) have been this spring? Is it something to do with the weather, or is it just me being so punch-drunk with seeing sunshine again that everything looks more sparkly than it ever has done before?

Beauty in unexpected places

07 Wednesday May 2008

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

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Tags

daffodils, roads, spring bulbs, unexpected beauty

This was the scene a few weeks ago at a road junction where I live. It’s the most unpromising place – a corner between one main road and another pretty busy minor road – and it had roadworks opposite and traffic to right and left. But in the middle was this stunning display of spring sunshine. I wasn’t the only one taking photos – it would put a smile on your face in the worst traffic jam ever!

Plant of the month – March

18 Tuesday Mar 2008

Posted by sallynex in plant of the month

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

christopher lloyd, daffodils, Great Dixter, hyacinths, spring bulbs

Hyacinth ‘Delft Blue’


I had always thought of hyacinths as the sort of flower your grandma grows. That is, until I saw them in the late great Christopher Lloyd’s border at Great Dixter. As regular readers will know, I’m a big fan of Mr Lloyd’s, so anything that’s good enough for him is good enough for me. When I went, he had ‘King of the Blues’ in his Long Border, and it truly zinged out at you from among the spring flowers – not gaudy, as some over-bred primroses are, for example, but just pure, joyous blue.

I couldn’t find ‘King of the Blues’ so had to opt for ‘Delft Blue’ – a more commonly-grown type but nonetheless superb for that. At this time of year its uncompromising china blue stands up beautifully to the butter-yellow daffodils all around it – this is not a wishy-washy plant, and all the better for it. You can force them to grow indoors – the usual excuse is to enjoy the scent at close quarters, but to be honest I find it overwhelming and a little sickly in the house. Far better to have it scattered on the wind so you catch a little puff of it as you pass by – one of those utterly blissful moments that gardening is all about. It seems grandma knew a trick or two after all.

Grape expectations

03 Monday Mar 2008

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

blind bulbs, bulbs, clump-forming, grape hyacinths, muscari, non-flowering, splitting clumps, spring bulbs

I’ve been digging out big clumps of grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum) from a client’s garden this morning, where they’d formed great grassy swathes and looked a bit like hairy wigs.

Before you think I’ve gone entirely crazy – what, digging up spring bulbs in spring? – this is actually a great time of year to do this job. I happened to know from last year that a lot of these muscari were coming up blind – that is, lots of foliage but no flowers. It’s a general tendency most spring bulbs have if they’re doing a little too well and have formed big, congested clumps. The only remedy is to dig up the clumps and remove about 3/4 of the bulbs, then replant.

The thing about doing it at this time of the year is, you can see the flower buds forming at the base of the leaves, so you can tell which clumps are blind and which aren’t. They don’t mind being hoicked out and replanted, even in flower – just water them back in and they’ll get on with things as if they’d never been disturbed.

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