Bulbs in Bloom
Plant now for beautiful spring bouquets.
Foolproof and fabulous, spring-flowering bulbs put gardening within everyone's reach. Whether you re-create our cutting garden or fashion your own, these tried-and-true tips will help you achieve the perfect look. And you'll have vases full of flowers next spring.
Selecting Colors
When choosing bulbs, focus on your favorite color, or try shades that accent already established plantings throughout your garden. Also, think about the hues you enjoy in bouquets. You may consider various shades of the same color, or complementary colors, such as purple and yellow. For inspiration, see "Bulbs Where You Live" on page 6.
To ensure showstopping results, consider blending solid and bicolored tulips using the "tone-on-tone" technique. For instance, place a solid deep purple tulip next to a lavender-and-white bicolored selection, choosing bulbs that flower at the same time. Or, skip the guesswork with one of Lowe's Ton Sur Ton blend tulip packages.
Timing Your Blooms
Spring bulbs blossom at different times-crocus and hyacinth in early spring, most daffodils and fritillary in midspring, and Dutch iris and allium late in the season. Various types of tulips bloom throughout spring. Simplify planting by placing selections with different bloom times in the same hole. If your tulips aren't the kind that naturalize (multiply over time, such as species tulips), place bulbs shoulder to shoulder when planting.
Planting by Design
Bulbs look best when planted in drifts, which create waves of color in your garden. An easy way to get this effect is to place selections in odd-numbered groupings. Using this technique also makes calculating how many you'll need easier.
Before you begin digging any holes, set out bulbs in the design you choose to ensure you have enough. Follow spacing requirements as indicated on bulb packaging (the exception being non-naturalizing tulips, which you can plant side by side).
Also, check the package directions to determine how deep to dig. Generally, a bulb should be at a depth that's equal to three times its diameter. Add bulb fertilizer, mixing it into the base of the planting hole. After planting, water the bulbs, add a layer of mulch, and then water again.
Setting the Stage
Define your planting borders with an eye-pleasing backdrop such as evergreen shrubs, a pretty fence, or a water garden. Incorporate focal points to capture attention, such as a birdbath or a statue. Dress up your flowerbed for fall and spring with cool-season annuals: pansies, sweet alyssum, or stock. Replace annuals in late May with impatiens (for shade) or trailing petunias (for sun). Consider adding a perennial ground cover to create year-round interest and reduce mulch replenishing. Good choices for sun include sedum or golden creeping Jenny. For shade, try sweet woodruff or ajuga.
Good To Know
Snip the stems at a slant to expose more surface area and ensure that cut flowers get enough water in a vase.
Gardening Tips
- Secrets to Bulb Success
- Make the most of your blooms next spring by arming yourself with a little knowledge.
- FROSTY MORNINGS
- Bulbs can withstand light frosts. If temperatures drop below 29° Fahrenheit, foliage and buds will suffer. Cover flowers or, if the cold lingers several nights, cut them for bouquets.
- STRAIGHT AND TALL
- Keep daffodils from drooping by surrounding clumps with hoop supports. Create your own by snipping tomato cages apart with a pair of bolt cutters to form separate hoops.
- TULIP PROTECTION
- Deer love to munch on tulips. Protect buds with an organic animal repellent or a homemade garlic-red pepper spray (combine garlic cloves, pepper, and hot sauce in a food processor, and then mix with water).
- BOUQUET BLENDS
- Don't mix cut daffodils and tulips in the same vase. (Cut daffodils exude a sap that kills tulips.) DIVISION WISDOM When naturalized bulbs, such as daffodils or hyacinths, fail to flower, examine the planting clump. If bulbs are crowded, mark the clump with a stake, and then dig and divide them in fall.
This bed was planned and planted to offer a mix of blossom shades and sizes. They are numbered in order of bloom time, from early to late spring. Find bulbs for your region at Lowe's.
'Single Blue' Poppy-Floweredanemone* 
Pastel Hyacinth mix and 'Woodstock' common hyacinth 
'Dutch Master' daffodil and mixed daffodils 
Parrot Tulip 
Giant Allium
*Anemone actually is classified as a Tuber, rather than a True Bulb. Both Tubers and True Bulbs, as well as Corms and Rhizomes, are subsets of the plant group commonly referred to as bulbs, and they can be planted and treated similarly.