Let me tell you one of gardening’s greatest secrets: for the price of a cup of coffee, you can buy a pack of bulbs that will flower year after year in your garden. It’s an investment that will repay you for years to come and like an investment it will grow and grow, creating fabulous interest every spring.
Bulbs are pretty much guaranteed to flower, and that’s because inside each little bulb that you plant is the bud of next year’s flower. All you need to do is plant the bulb and add water. It’s as simple as that. Nature does the rest. Even if you are new to gardening, you will get great results. spring flowering bulbs are one of the easiest ways to fill your garden with colour and joy for little effort and not much cost.
Plant a variety
For the very best results you need to plant a variety of different types of bulbs. Think of it like making a painting or a tapestry; for the best effect you need different shapes and different textures and a range of colours. Bulbs are perfect for this.
For some quick inspiration check out the bulbs for sale on our website. The great thing about our plants and bulbs is that each and every one is chosen with great care for its quality and performance.
Here are five types of spring-flowering bulbs to transform your garden.
Daffodils (Narcissi)
These golden wonders are the harbingers of spring. Nothing shouts spring louder than the cheery yellow flowers of narcissi. What’s so great about them is that there are dwarf varieties like ‘Jet Fire’ with gorgeous orange red trumpets and fabulous yellow corolla. Plant these in pots or at the front of the border, or naturalize in the lawn. Or the striking larger forms like Narcissus Carlton, with large yellow trumpets. Mix them up or plant each variety in individual containers for a stunning display.
Daffodils can be planted as soon as you get them, this gives them time to grow a healthy mass of roots.
Tulips
If you love cut flowers, grow tulips. These flamboyant spring flowers are fabulous in the garden, and decadent in vases in the house. There is nothing nicer than picking flowers from your own garden to decorate your home. And it’s a lovely way to share your garden with loved ones, with a bunch of home-grown tulip flowers. Tulips come in every colour shade and every size and shape. You can choose individual wonders for a striking colour statement or take advantage of a carefully selected collection like Richard’s Cutting Garden Collection full of beauties to fill your cut-flower vases.
Alliums
If you’ve admired those purple flower globes at the summer flower shows, then you’ve been admiring alliums. These are ornamental onions, with fabulous spheres of pretty flower heads in shades of mauve and purple. Alliums reliably repeat flower year after year and they also bulk up so that your display gets better and better over the years. Great for the borders, or plant them in pots for a stunning display. The flowers last for weeks, can be cut for cut-flowers and also have fabulous seed heads for winter decoration. Good for pollinators too. Check out Richard’s lovely mix of the white flowered Allium nigrum and the stunning ‘Purple Sensation’, creating a regal combination that looks fantastic.
Grape Hyacinths (muscari)
Some of my very favourite flowering bulbs are the muscari, otherwise known as grape hyacinths because the flowers are borne in upside down bunches of grapes. The little spires of flowers are blue, mauve or even white and very rich in nectar. In early spring a clump of muscari can be a saviour for early emerging bumblebee queens. There are several fabulous cultivars of these easy to grow bulbs. Muscari armeniacum is a strong variety with lovely blue flowers, tipped with a white edge. They will build up to a healthy clump. Ideal for pots and rockeries.
Snakes head fritillary
If I told you that there was a native plant with exotic-looking purple flowers patterned with an almost cross-stitch effect that is easy to grow, would you believe me?? Well, there is. It’s called the Snake’s head fritillary because the nodding buds look like a snake’s head and the mottled petals really do look a bit like a snake’s skin. Its Latin name is Fritillaria meleagris and though it looks exotic, it’s actually native (botanists think it escaped from a garden many centuries ago and has naturalized here) and it is fully-hardy, self-seeds and looks fabulous naturalized in the lawn. The pretty flowers can be cut to display in posy vases in the home. There is a white form too which is also very lovely.
