For the last two years I have been working on a total landscaping overhaul of my property, which is a medium sized suburban lot. Last year I concentrated on the back yard–I planted trees/shrubs/perennials and installed a large fountain during the spring and summer. Then I planted 100 Thalia daffodil bulbs in the fall.
The Thalias were gorgeous when they bloomed this spring. It didn’t really seem like all that much work to plant the bulbs, although planting bulbs is one of my least favorite garden chores. (Probably the only thing I hate more is adjusting sprinklers.) So this spring I put in a reserve order for 250 more white narcissus and muscari bulbs to finish off those parts of the back yard where I hadn’t planted any Thalias.
Now I have started on the front yard renovation, and I couldn’t help thinking how great some daffodils would look in the front yard–yellow and orange ones this time instead of white–and after all, it is fall…so bulb planting season. Then I started getting email notifications from every bulb vendor online having clearance sales on bulbs. The bottom line is I ordered 550 more bulbs.
Now they have started to arrive and I have to plant them. I planted 200 of the back yard bulbs in the last two days, which was quite a feat considering how difficult it is to find a 3" square space back there now that doesn’t already have something planted in it. I have 100 more to plant today, and I just received email notifications from UPS that I have two more bulb shipments arriving this week.
I feel like I’m being buried under a mountain of bulbs. Why do I do stuff like this to myself???
I’m pretty limited on the types of bulbs I can grow that will naturalize here (and I’m not willing to waste my time on the ones that won’t). So I ordered daffodils, Spanish bluebells, Dutch iris, Lycoris aurea, and muscari. My original “reserve” order this spring was with Brent and Becky’s. Really liked their communication and the quality of the bulbs. They are the ones I have been planting for the last 3 days, and out of an order of approximately 275, I don’t think I found a single bad bulb. The ones I bought on sale were from Dutchgrown.com, Van Engelen (which is the same as John Scheepers, except in wholesale quantities), Bluestone Perennials, and Home Depot. Home Depot had a great price on the Lycoris; those are usually really expensive. I received them yesterday, and they were in good shape, too.
One thing I found out by accident is that some of these places will send you an email with an additional discount code if you put items in your online cart and then leave it for a day or two.
I did order one of those augers a couple of days ago, but it hasn’t arrived yet. I’m not really sure how much use it will be for me since my soil is really sandy and tends to collapse back into the hole, but we’ll see.
I knocked out another 100 bulbs yesterday, so now I am waiting for the remaining 550 to arrive. Yay, I get a day off!
I finally got the last of the bulbs planted earlier this week. I don’t think I have ever been so happy as when that last bulb went in the ground. Never again.
Nice. None of the tools worked in my stony hard soil, neither the augur nor the bulb planter. I probably have to dig lines with a pick and bury the bulbs. If only these rains let up…
That’s too bad. They didn’t work in my soil either, but it wasn’t because my soil was hard or stony. Mine is like beach sand and just collapses back into the hole. It’s also very difficult to wet once it is dry, so you can’t just wet it down and then be working with damp sand.
I don’t envy you having to plant yours with a pick.
glad our soil is frozen and over 2ft. of snow as I’ve seen some half priced bulk deals on bulbs that would be hard not to buy if i could plant right now. looking to see how my crocuses do again this spring before planting more.
An old boss at a garden center dug a trench every year and would accumulate all the bulbs we were instructed to toss out and he would dig trenches however deep and toss them all in. He had years and years worth of planted material from the nursery growing on a lady’s property he rented from. It was a neat little two house bungalo in Portland OR with enough garden room and sunlight being that it was in it’s own little forest as well of giant Douglas firs . . . that the place was surely unique. The bulb show was incredible. HE had tiered a hillside and there were three or four trenches 2-3 ft. wide by 16-20’ long. I remember the gunny sacks full of yellow daffodils we had left over on a pallet one day that he took home and poured into a trench. The place reminded me a lot of Jurassic Park, the movie. He had spined Acacia along with Passionflowers and a large Clerodendron trichotomum and blooming perennials everywhere. Little curved paths with small fish ponds interplanted with miniature blooming perennials and mosses, and other furry walk-on groundcovers. It was a mecca for taxa.
I’m only planning to plant 100 but got an auger from HD after seeing this.
