Get the best display of spring blooms in your garden by following these great tips for planting spring bulbs this fall.
It is a greater act of faith to plant a bulb than to plant a tree.
—Clare Leighton
Spring is the time of year where I crave the most color. After a long, gray winter, I long for flowers and signs of life in my garden.
And when the bulbs do spring up and begin to bloom, I heave a sigh of relief (it worked!) and thank my last fall self for having the foresight to plant all the bulbs.
If you too know that you will be longing for flowers in the spring, plant spring bulbs this fall!
10 Best Tips for Planting Spring Blooming Bulbs
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Here are 10 tips to get a beautiful display of spring blooms and make the most of your fall gardening efforts.
1. Choose Quality Bulbs
The best spring flowers come from healthy bulbs. When you are buying spring bulbs to plant in the fall, select firm, healthy bulbs without any signs of mold or damage.
Also, try to get the biggest bulbs you can. The bigger the bulb, the better the bloom quality compared to smaller bulbs of the same kind.
If you are buying bulbs online, look for reputable sources to ensure quality.
A few places to buy spring bulbs online that I would recommend are:
2. Plant at the Right Time
Make sure to plant the right kinds of bulbs at the right time. For example, dahlias and cannas are summer-blooming flowers that should be planted in the spring, not in the fall. While tulips and daffodils should be planted in the fall to bloom in the spring.
Fall is the best to plant spring-blooming bulbs because they need cold winter temperatures to trigger their bloom cycle.
Spring-flowering bulbs to plant in the fall include:
- tulips
- daffodils
- hyacinth
- crocus
- alliums
- snowdrops
- grape hyacinth or muscari
- fritillaries
- wind anemones (anemone blanda)
- Dutch iris
- Siberian squill
Plant bulbs about 6-8 weeks before the first hard frost, or when the ground freezes. Typically you can plant bulbs in September and October for cooler regions or as late as December for warmer regions. This allows the bulbs to establish roots before winter.
Garlic is an edible bulb that is also planted in the fall! I have a growing guide about garlic here, and I explain the differences between softneck and hardneck garlic this this post if you are interested.
3. Pick the Right Spot
Choose a location with well-draining soil and at least 6 hours of sunlight daily. Avoid areas that collect water or your bulbs could rot, which would be so disappointing!
If you purchased a pack of bulbs from the nursery, check the back of the packet to see the growing conditions required for your spring bulbs.
I do want to note that you can and should water your bulbs in after planting to wake them up and get them to start rooting in.
Sometimes, I will time my planting with the rain to let them get watered in naturally, but a good garden hose like this one will work just fine!
4. Plant in Clusters
I think spring flowers look best in large clusters rather than lined up in a row. That way it looks like they just sprung up on their own naturally.
Instead of planting in straight lines, group bulbs in clusters for a more natural look and to create a visual impact when they bloom. Plant bulbs in odd numbered groups. It’s fine to plant some bulbs closer together and some farther apart.
Scatter the groups of bulbs throughout your garden in a random pattern for a natural look.
I’ve also tried tossing bulbs on the ground and planting them where they fall to make a natural look. It can be hard to not plant bulbs symmetrically and evenly spaced!
5. Plant the Right Way Up
Plant bulbs with the pointed end facing up. Look for roots on one end. That’s the part that will be facing down.
If unsure, you can plant them sideways; they will find their way up.
6. Protect from Pests
Consider using physical barriers, such as wire mesh or hardware cloth over and around your bulbs, to deter animals like squirrels from digging up and eating your bulbs.
To protect bulbs from pests digging from above ground, you can cover your bulbs by placing wire mesh over the top of the bulb bed at the time of planting. Remove the wire mesh or hardware cloth once bulbs begin sprouting in the spring so that they have room to grow.
Protecting bulbs from voles that dig from below the surface is a little more difficult. You’ll have to create two cages: one to cover your bulbs from below, and another to cover them from the top that is removable.
Or you can simply plant daffodils and alliums. Pests typically leave daffodils and alliums alone in my experience.
I only plant daffodils in areas where we have a lot of vole activity.
In contrast, voles seem to love eating tulips, so I plant spring bulbs like tulips strategically in places where there is no vole activity, cross my fingers and hope for the best!
7. Pair Bulbs with the Right Companions
Spring bulbs use their leaves to collect energy that they store in the bulb. This energy is what helps them to rebloom the following spring. However, the dying foliage doesn’t really look great.
So companion plant bulbs alongside herbaceous perennials that begin to grow later in the season to hide the dying foliage of the bulbs. This way your spring garden continually looks fresh and clean while the bulbs can get the energy they need to rebloom next spring.
Some herbaceous perennials I like to plant spring bulbs with are:
- hostas
- heucheras
- tall sedum
- astilbe
- daylilies
- brunnera
- hardy geranium
- lamb’s ear
- nepeta
Companion planting spring bulbs with perennials also can create a lush, layered look in your garden and maximize interest. One of my favorite bulbs to use for layering are alliums.
Alliums look like fireworks in the garden. They grow very tall and look great in the back of the border to add whimsy and interest.
You can also plant bulbs where you typically plant annuals to hide the bulb foliage after blooming. Just be careful planting annuals in the spring so that you don’t damage the bulbs accidentally. Use a tag or garden marker to mark the spots where you have bulbs planted.
8. Use an Auger to Plant
I find it easier to plant bulbs at the right depth when I use a tool like an auger. In general, you’ll want to dig a hole two to three times as deep as the bulb is tall. For example, if your bulb is 2 inches tall, dig a hole 4 to 6 inches deep.
Investing in an auger to plant my spring bulbs was one of the best garden tool purchases I’ve made.
Our heavy clay soil is always so hard to dig in the fall and I’ll admit that I give up pretty easily or plant my bulbs way too shallowly because of this. But using an auger ensures consistent planting depth and makes the process quicker and more fun.
9. Create a Bulb Lasagna
Layer different types of bulbs in the same hole by height (e.g., tulips at the bottom, daffodils in the middle, and crocus on top) for a staggered bloom effect.
You’ll get twice as much color and drama in the same space.
Also, check the bloom times of the bulbs you are planting. Typically bulbs are labeled as early spring, mid-spring, and late spring bloomers.
If you want certain colors of flowers to bloom together, make sure that they bloom at the same time. Conversely, if you want a long continuous show of blooms, plant bulbs that bloom at different times in spring.
10. Fertilize with Bone Meal
Add an organic fertilizer like bone meal or a pre-mixed bulb fertilizer to your planting hole. Bone meal will provide phosphorus and promote strong root growth and healthy blooms.
Compost is also a good amendment to add in with your bulbs or to use as mulch layer on top of your bulbs.
Favorite Spring Bulb Varieties
I have a few favorite spring bulb varieties that I’ve come to love for their color and uniqueness. Try one of these if you don’t know where to start.
- Narcissus Waltz (a split corona daffodil with a pink center)
- Tete-a-Tete Daffodil (cute little yellow daffodils grow clustered on a stem)
- Pink Mix Daffodil (blend of daffodils with pink centers)
- Color Festival Muscari Mix (blend of pink, white, light blue, and dark blue muscari)
- Globemaster Allium (huge 8″ sized perfectly round purple bloomheads; a classic allium that is really impressive in the garden)
- Drumstick Allium (late blooming, egg-shaped pinky-purple bloomheads)
- Blue Spectacle Tulip (double-flowering, deep purple tulip with peony form)
- Black Parrot (ruffly tulip petals in a dark, rich burgundy color)
- Anemone Blanda Mix (beautiful, short-growing blooms that make a great groundcover)
Planting Spring Bulbs
Out of all the fall tasks to do in your garden, planting spring-flowering bulbs is at the top of my list.
I hope you learned a lot about planting spring bulbs and will use these 10 tips as you plant your bulbs this fall. Please leave a comment below if you have any other tips for planting bulbs so we can all learn together.