Now Is the Time to Plant Tulips and Daffodils

Don’t you love early spring when the outdoors starts to come back to life? You are slogging through the worse part of winter and then all of sudden you see an early flowering tree, the Cherry Blossom forecast is part of the nightly news (here in D.C. anyway), and the first electric-yellow daffodils in your neighbor’s yard appear. These are the first indications that spring is really coming.

Tulips and phlox in April.

Adding those early daffodils, tulips, and hyacinth to your home’s landscape is easy and affordable. I can’t tell you how cheerful those bobbing flower-heads can be!

Cut daffodils.

BULBS ARE EASY TO FIND

This time of year, along with the Christmas-themed inflatables, you can find a small but very nice selection of hardy bulbs at your neighborhood big box or hardware store. I even saw them in the grocery store today. Hardy bulbs are planted once in the fall and then left in the ground, and are the source of daffodils, tulips, and other early spring flowers.

START SMALL

Start small because planting bulbs on a cold fall day is not that fun. But but but – the pay off!! And you can probably get 15 bulbs for about $10.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT LOCATION

I am big proponent of enjoying your garden from the inside of the house. If you are working from home a lot more these days, choose a spot from your “office” window so you can enjoy them all day long.

Bulbs should be planted is a well-drained area of the your yard. The amount of sunlight does not really matter that much because the leaves are not on the trees when bulbs are popping up.

They don’t even have to be put in a prepared bed. I have a bunch of daffodils under the lawn. By the time the grass is ready to mowed for the first time, the flowers are long gone. Think of succession planting! (Note that there will green leaves that should stay attached to the bulbs until they naturally die and can be easily pulled off.) 

Bare bulbs, roots on the bottom.
Photo credit Univ. of Minnesota Extension

PLANTING INSTRUCTIONS

1. Like I mentioned above, bulbs should be planted in late fall in well-drained area of the your yard.
2. Dig a hole about 6 inches deep and plop one bulb, facing the right side up, in the hole.
3. Plant your bulbs about 6 inches apart.
4. I would recommend digging the holes and placing all the bulbs before covering them back over with dirt. That way you can see where they are and check the spacing.
5. I have heard stories of squirrels digging up bulbs, but I think if you dig them deep enough – truly 6 inches, no cheating – you should not have a problem.

Put your out-of-place pumpkins to good use

Now that Christmas decorations are up in the house and the light extravaganza is plugged in outside, the pumpkins I bought before Halloween seem out of place in my yard. Remember when you were ready for fall? I was so excited back in early October to find the right size, shape and personality of the pumpkins that I was going use to decorate. Alas, pumpkins and Santa do not mix.

There is a Reddit group for photos of squirrels eating things - thanks for the pic!

Put those pumpkins to good use! I smash them open for the birds and squirrels to eat the seeds. Then you can put the orange carcass in the compost bin or, as I do, just leave it out on one of the flower beds to decompose. By spring it will be completely gone and the soil will have some new organic matter to start the growing season.

Time to plant garlic

According to the University of Maryland extension, now is the time to plant garlic so roots can develop before the cold winter.

Last week I planted hard-neck garlic that I got at the Silver Spring (Maryland) Garden Club's October meeting. Tony Sarmiento, a local garlic grower and evangelist, shared a head with everyone at the meeting.

• He advised that your plot get 9 hours of sun a day and be grown in well-drained soil that has organic matter. 
• Break up the head and plant the individual cloves 6-8 inches apart at a depth double the height of the clove. 
• It is recommended to dip the cloves in a mixture of 1 part bleach to 9 parts water before planting.
• He also advised covering the patch with mulch after the ground has frozen.

Easy, right?

I have grown garlic in the past with mixed results so I am eager to see what happens when the winter is over. The garlic will be ready to harvest in early summer.