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Planting Bulbs in Beds
and Landscape Planters
Bulbs for Beds, Borders, and Planters
Whether you’re planning a formal, informal, or naturalized garden, mixed plantings make for memorable beds and borders.
Take some time before planting a formal bed or border to gather ideas, create pleasing patterns of color and height and to choose bulbs that will grow best in your site.
Make a Planting Plan
For formal beds, lay out the pattern you wish to achieve in the bed, border, or planter, and make adjustments. Once the planting areas are outlined, you’ll know how many bulbs will be needed of each species, variety, or color.
Remember the keys to a formal bulb planting are straight lines, geometry, and symmetry. Match or contrast colors, and repeat patterns several times to unify the bed, border or planter.
In naturalized plantings, use edging materials or plant double, staggered rows of bulbs to create living frames for your patterns as you would in a formal garden, and remember to blend the edges where colors meet.
Think of a color palette, and blend through a range of family hues—from red to red orange, for instance, or orange to yellow—to mix and blend the forms.
Choosing a Site for Bulbs
Considering Sites for Bulbs
Bulbs have a place in every garden.
Plant them in containers and window boxes, in island beds, in borders, as edges for paths and fences, to divide and augment plantings of flowering shrubs, as a necklace around the base of a tree, or in many other pleasing spots.
Choose your site for planting a bulb garden by considering the conditions in your garden and which bulbs will perform best there.
Consider Climate
Bulb species are native to varied lands that experience a range of climate conditions. If you need a reminder, take a minute to acquaint yourself with their climate needs and how they match those found in your garden [see: Bulb Basics].
Your garden likely has one of three climates:
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- Cold, freezing winters and moist, warm summers;
- Mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers; or
- Generally mild winters with humid, wet summers.
Microclimates
Your site also may be affected by microclimates: wind and sun exposure, slopes and elevation, and nearby structures that limit sunlight or reflect heat. Microclimates may cause your plant hardiness zone aor growing conditions to differ somewhat from those of your nearby neighbors.
Rest assured. You’ll find many bulbs that are well suited to each type of climate and microclimate, even to those too close to call.
Sun, Shade and Light
Finally, note how much sunlight the area you’re considering receives at various times of the day. Do trees and structures cast shade? Does sunlight fall on it all day long, part of the day, or is it in full or partial shade? Do trees filter the sunlight? How will the situation change when trees and shrubs lose their leaves?
Some bulbs need full sunlight to grow well, while others thrive in partial or complete shade.
Soil
Finally, what is the condition of the soil? Has the bed been used to grow other plants? Was it fallowed—unused—for a few years? Was your site disturbed when your new home was built, leaving only mineral subsoil?
Has the soil become dense and compacted, or is it loose and sandy? Will you need to add fertilizers and amendments to bolster its nutrients and correct its acid-alkaline balance (pH)? [see: Preparing Soil for Bulbs]
Asking and answering these questions will help determine if the bulbs you plant will thrive, or your plantings will struggle.