It’s bulb planting season – here’s how to create the most magnificent displays

Bulbs are a cost-effective, versatile and easy way to add colour and interest to your garden, from late winter snowdrops (Galanthus) and winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) through to May’s alliums; camassias; trilliums; Narcissus ‘Pheasant’s Eye’ and tulip species Tulipa sprengeri. Once established, bulbs self-multiply, giving you plenty of freebies to transplant around your garden. Here is how to select, plant and display your bulbs.

Brighten up your woodlands

Use early bloomers under deciduous shrubs and trees where they can enjoy dappled light. Winter aconites, early daffodils, grape hyacinth, wood anemones, dog’s tooth violets, chionodoxa, snowdrops and spring snowflakes add pretty splashes of colour at a drab time of year.

They offer interest before the leaves show and will be gone by the time plants come into leaf,” says Emma Allen, head of horticultural relations at the RHS.

Bulbs can be planted in a carpet of a single colour, in two-toned swathes such as white snowdrops mingled with blue wood anemones, or in a multi-coloured array. Circles around trunks are also effective.

Snowdrops’ dying foliage in April makes a useful mulch to prevent weeds coming through.

Bluebells however, are best avoided in your garden. Like grape hyacinth, they are garden thugs but their bulbs are much harder to dig out.

“My garden is completely underplanted with Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica) and I’d strongly advise people not to introduce those into their gardens. They can be too much of a good thing,” says Guy Barter, chief horticulturist at the RHS.

Happy bulbs self-propagate so leave them to increase naturally. Every few years dig up and separate baby bulbs from the parents and replant them for more flowers. Daffodils, snowdrops and grape hyacinth are especially robust and prolific self-spreaders.

Tip: Some bulbs such as snowdrops and Anemone nemorosa are said to better thrive if bought ‘in the green’ – dug up after flowering while the leaves are alive. You can still plant dry bulbs now, then after they have multiplied, dig some up while in the green for transplanting.

Pretty petite in grass

For your lawn, choose small, early bloomers that will be gone before you start mowing the grass. Especially if you adopt conservation charity Plantlife’s “No Mow May”. Mix them for a pretty panoply of colour and interest: winter aconites, wood anemones, dog’s tooth violets, chionodoxa, and sun-loving crocuses, dwarf irises and early dwarf narcissus. For a natural look, use a scattergun approach, throwing bulbs and planting them where they land.

Cut a flap into the turf, plant the bulb at a depth of two to three times its height, re-cover and tamp the grass down. For longer grass, create a spring wildflower meadow, using bigger, later-flowering, sun-loving bulbs. Choose daffodils, fritillaria, tulips, camassias and alliums. Allium ‘Purple Rain’ in particular is a “great doer”. “If you’re struggling to get your alliums going, that’ll romp away,” says Allen. Dot different varieties and colours at random among ornamental grasses to create a naturalistic effect. The bulbs will segue perfectly into summer wildflowers. The bulbs can be left alone to self-multiply each year.

Tip: Fritillaria can be tricky to grow because they are fussy about habitat. Start off with Fritillaria meleagris (snake’s head fritillary], which is an easier species to grow. It is only 20cm high so be careful not to swamp it with tall grasses.

Mix and match your borders

Experiment. Allen says: “Have some fun, don’t get hung up on what other people think, you’ve got to like and enjoy it. Play with it and learn.”

If you are unsure about colours, Barter suggests a tried and tested method of buying a bag of mixed wallflowers (Erysimum) and one of mixed tulips and planting them en-masse.

“You get an effect that gives you a headache but you can see what goes well together then in subsequent years buy the single colours.”

For edging, use smaller specimens: crocuses, dwarf iris, anemones, dog’s tooth violets, and Cyclamen coum are perfect. You can select one variety in a single or alternating colours, for example, white species Crocus ‘Snow Bunting’ or Crocus x cultorum ‘Jeanne D’Arc’, with Crocus tommasinianus ‘Barr’s Purple’. Or try violet and white Crocus ‘Pickwick’ on its own. Alternatively, mix varieties and colours for a more naturalistic look. Slightly taller flowers, such as spring and summer snowflakes, snowdrops, grape hyacinth, fritillaria, and hyacinths, come next, followed by taller daffodils, alliums, camassias, and tulips.

If you decide to plant in swathes, use ‘fishy’ shapes to avoid a regimental look, says Barter. In mixed borders and beds, blocks of one variety in one color look best. For example, blue camassias alongside yellow daffodils, or pink camassias with red tulips. Or pop your bulbs to bloom in between shrubs and earlier flowering herbaceous perennials and annuals. If you do this, plant in odd numbers to avoid a rigid effect. Bits of holly planted between bulbs helps deter squirrels from digging them up.

Tip: Allium and tulip foliage dies off quickly compared to daffodils, which are best sited near the back with a masking plant in front such as a hardy fuchsia.

Go potty with your pots

Containers are an ideal opportunity to get up close to your flowers. Anything looks good in a pot. You can start with late December/January snowdrops; yellow winter aconite; pink or white Cyclamen coum, and early Narcissus ’Rijnveld’s Early Sensation’. Then move through the months: In February, crocuses and spring snowflake (Leucojum vernum). In March you are spoilt for choice with chionodoxa; dwarf iris (Iris reticulata); Anemone blanda and nemorosa; hyacinths; daffodils; and summer snowflakes (Leucojum aestivum). April brings tulips in all shapes, sizes and colours; fritillaria; dog’s tooth violet; and grape hyacinth. Try some new RHS ‘Award of Garden Merit’ cultivars of grape hyacinth, including white Muscari ‘Casablanca’; two-toned M. latifolium ‘Grape Ice’’; and vibrant blue M. ‘Carola’.

You can opt for a “bulb lasagne” look, planting a mixture in layers, with the biggest bulbs at the bottom. For example, crocuses, followed by grape hyacinth, then tulips. Or you can go for a single variety or colour in your pot. Rembrandt’s tulips in a pot enable you “to enjoy their strange stripes and streaks” up close, says Barter.

Allen plants for a season then transfers the bulbs after flowering to the garden. It frees up the pots for summer displays and expands your garden collections. Squirrels especially love tulip and crocus bulbs but tend to avoid smelly ones such as allium and fritillaria. To deter them, use holly or chicken wire topped with mulch.

Tip: Containers are a good opportunity to try something new: “You don’t have to throw out all your beloved schemes, you can just do a pot of something different this time,” says Barter.

Big, bold and full of zing

Any bulbs can be used for bold swathes because it is the block of colour that catches the eye. Take a leaf out of the book of plantsman Christopher Lloyd at Great Dixter gardens in Sussex and experiment outrageously with combinations. Planting in swathes that repeat themselves throughout your garden provides cohesion. You can plant in alternating blocks of variety and colour. Tulips are particularly good for creating a sensationally vibrant effect because they come in a wide range of shades and shapes.

The colour combinations are endless: ‘Orange Princess’ with the black ‘Queen of Night’; pale pink ‘Silver Cloud’ with ‘Purple Lady’. Or just solid blocks of ‘Red Impression’ or red and yellow ‘Helmar’. Multi-coloured blocks catch the eye too, for example ‘Rembrandt’s Strokes’, or a mixture of bulbs. As William Wordsworth discovered, daffodils also lend themselves well to swathes.

You could work your way through the months, with blocks of yellow ’Rijnveld’s Early Sensation’ for January and ‘February Gold’ for blooms the following month. In May you could opt for a stunning show of the white petalled, orange-eyed ‘Pheasant’s Eye’. Alliums look stunning in groups, for example, the purple, giant headed ‘Globemaster’ or ‘Cristophii’. Or try a swathe of the blue headed ‘Azureum’ or the white ‘Silver Spring.’

If pastel is more your thing, when planted en-masse, paler shades look just as good as reds, oranges and yellows. Try white, blue, and pink camassias.

Tip: “Size is everything in a bulb, always buy the biggest you can,” says Barter. “A bulb grows for several years as a vegetative plant and only develops a flower when it reaches a certain critical size. If it’s on the borderline of that critical size you could plant a packet of ten bulbs and get eight flowers. If you plant ten top size bulbs you’ll get ten, maybe more, flowers.”

Where to buy

Whether by mail order, nursery or retailer, choose sellers with a reputation for reliable stock. Bulbs offer good value for money anyway so there is no need to buy very cheap specimens which might be too small to flower, may not grow true to type, or could carry disease.

Renowned suppliers include: Taylors Bulbs; bulbs.co.uk; Jacques Amand; Sarah Raven; Farmer Gracy; Crocus. There are plenty of others though, go by word-of-mouth recommendation.