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Bulbs in Formal Beds and Gardens
Classic Landscape Color with Bulbs
When using bulbs for color in formal landscapes, it’s best to divide the large area into smaller sections, each with its own plantings but with a common design and theme.
Division is especially important when for planting formal beds and borders with bulbs. An area situated beneath paired trees, for instance, might be suitable to host an intertwined pair of circular plantings or rings of color.
There are as many variations as there are landscapes.
No single design solves every landscape. It’s possible, however, to adapt basic design elements to your yard.
You might, for example, relate adjacent areas by repeating elements in a different color or with another species of bulb.
Another choice could be a large circular planting, or one with two smaller satellites placed nearby. Each circular bed would contain flower plantings similar in pattern and colors to those of the larger bed.
Still another option is to position bulbs in beds so they form groups of triangles, then use their end points as lines for walks, hedges, or edgings.
One might instead use two, three, or four overlapped triangles of bulbs to fill an irregular, U-shaped planting area, with central primary colors blending in shades to complement the edges.
Whichever design pattern might be selected, choose one primary site to act as the planting’s focal point. Remember, that focal point might shift to a new location as the garden season progresses and one species’ blooms fade while another’s emerge.
Use layering of bulbs to keep color in your beds all season long, planting early spring, mid-spring, late spring, summer, and autumn bulbs within your basic design or color pattern [see: Layering, below and right]. Over the season, your landscape will boast ever-changing color patterns.
With layers of different bulb species, early spring bulbs such as crocus and glory-of-the-snow bloom ahead of late spring bloomers such as lily-of-the-valley and flag iris.
Midsummer lily and gladiolus follow both of those blooms, and yields to a final display of autumn crocus and meadow saffron.
Layering
Layering is a planting technique as suitable for landscapes as it is for containers.
Pick bulbs of different species with different depths of planting. Choose either bulbs that will bloom at the same time or those that will bloom in succession.
Clear the beds of rocks, roots and debris, then dig planting holes, trenches, or entire areas. Remove soil until the base is a few inches deeper as the recommended planting depth of the deepest species to be planted.
Once planting holes are dug, follow the directions given for Group Plantings [see: 7 Ways to Plant Bulbs].
You may repeat this process as many times as desired for beds that bloom in succession with layered, mixed-bulb species and colors.