Daily Home Renovation Tips

In Part 25, we prepared both the main front garden and one of the side gardens to receive our new tulip bulbs.

Today, the side garden

Now, the first thing we planned for was the height of the tulips.

We mentioned yesterday how we needed tall tulip plants in the side garden next to the front door because of it’s  stone border. As well, we wanted to be sure that the tulips would be visible from behind the Hostas that would be between the tulips and  the stone garden border.

Now, the tallest we could find were the Menton variety. And, they colour should blend nicely with the red brick of our home.

Now, the select of the Tulip varity is not as simple as one might think. Let me explain.

Look again at the package. It’s a little blurry (sorry about that :-(  ) , however, see how the lower middle of package has the phrase ‘Jumbo bulbs 14cm for Giant Flowers’. If one is in a hurry, one might simply focus on the word ‘Jumbo’ and the phrase ‘Giant Flowers’ and think that these are very tall flowers.

Not so fast. What you have to look for is the fine print; actually, the small little symbols over the right side of the packaging. What you have to look for is the one that is for the height of the flower. On this package it  stated that a height of 65 cm which is about,  if my math is right, 2 feet 3 inches. Good. That’s pretty tall and should cause the flower to appear over both the side garden’s brick border as well as the leaves of the Hostas.

Additional information on the package indicated that the bulbs should be planted between September and November, 15 cm (6 inches) apart as well as deep, and that we should see the flowers blooming in May.

Now, planting tulips is pretty easy. But, from a planning perspective, you should decide the arrangement of the flowers when they are in bloom. If you want to have a large grouping for a visibly large colour impact in the spring then you will plant the bulbs in a group. If you want say the flowers to be in two rows, then you will plant the bulbs in two rows.

We decided on the former, i.e. we wanted a large grouping to give a nice splash of colour.

So, step 1, clear the soil of the Hostas’ leaves as well as weeds from the summer, check (OK, OK .. this picture was before I cleared all of the weeds :-)  ).

Step 2, use a shovel, spade or hand tool to remove sufficient soil from the area where you will plant the bulbs, ensuring that the area for the bulbs is the same depth as that recommended on the package, check.

Step 3, place the bulbs in the desired pattern that you want the flowers to appear, check.

Step 4, gently (so the bulbs do not move by the soil) replace the soil on top of the bulbs, and smooth the top.

Next time, the main front garden.

To continue to the next article in this series, simply select this lnk to Part 27.