In January, the snowdrops in the Secret Garden looked like this:

Snowdrops in the Secret Garden January 2010

Those same snowdrops in early March

Snow melts first around the base of trees, even stumps

The snow melts in damp areas first, though bulbs for this site must tolerate soggy soil.

The south-facing areas amongst shrubs are another good place for the earliest bulbs

Plant some early bulbs by a corner of the house that traps heat.

South-facing areas near pavement are the best of all. Can you see the snowdrops?

Label Your Images

As you may have noticed, these images don’t look like much. If you don’t rename your images, tag them, write captions for them, or whatever your photo managing program permits, you will look at them in July and wonder, “What was I thinking? Why did I take a bunch of photos of dirty, tired snow?” Put them in a folder labeled Plant Bulbs Here and make a note in your calendar to order them in June, when there are discounts for early online orders.

Which Bulbs Are the Earliest?

Of the commonly available snowdrops, Galanthus elwesii is the earliest. Winter aconites (Eranthis spp.) are reputedly equally as early, though they have not been so for me. I am not sure if they are coming back this year. When they like your garden, they really take off. The small species crocus bloom soon after the snowdrops for me. Two to three weeks after the very first blooms, the larger Dutch crocus, the Siberian squills, and the glory-of-the-snow (Chionodoxa) are all blooming. By then it’s a whole different ball game.

Yesterday I told you how I finally realized species tulips planted in the peony bed would help to bridge the bloom gap of late spring. I got the tulips chosen and purchased, and now I’m going to show you how I planted them.

The Smartest Way to Plant 150 Tulip Bulbs

But first let’s talk about the most efficient way of planting them, just so you know my way is not the only or best way. The most efficient way of planting them would be to dig a foot-wide, fifteen-foot long trench some four to six inches deep. Then you would place all the bulbs in the trench, somewhat randomly but more or less evenly spaced. And the truly smart person would have placed a tarp alongside the trench upon which to dump the removed soil, so all that dirt could be quickly replaced into the trench after the bulbs were planted.

The Way I Planted 150 Tulip Bulbs

But I didn’t plant the tulips that way. I knew there were crocuses and snowdrops in the bed and I wanted to save and replant them with the tulips. I also didn’t want to harm any peony roots. Also because of the peonies, I wanted to avoid stepping on the bed if at all possible. I had already seen some red points, the tips of next year’s sprouts, poking through the soil in places.

So, I dug out one square foot at a time.

Yes, I used two rulers to measure a square foot.

This is one of several crocus clumps I unearthed. I also found snowdrop clumps.

I placed ten bulbs in each hole. I avoided straight lines better as I went along.

Not all of the divided bulbs will bloom next year, but in a couple of years each separated bulb will be a new clump.

After I filled in one hole, I would move the farthest tent pegs to mark the corners of the new square and dig again. I did it fifteen times, spaced over two days. As I worked, I wondered if it would look more like fifteen disparate clumps of tulips, or one unbroken sweep. I decided not to worry about that. I thought about how I was being a tad particular, measuring each square foot and counting out bulbs. Oh, well, that’s just me. That’s how I garden. My gardening methods fit my personality and not a work schedule or business plan. It’s also why, I mused, I could never garden for a living. I sleep better at night knowing I saved hundreds of small bulbs worth pennies each, at the cost of several hours of expensive (if I was paying myself) labor. And it will still look beautiful next spring.

How about you? How does your personality show up in your gardening?

After the snowdrops, after the crocuses, after the daffodils, there is just about nothing blooming in the front of the house until the June show of peonies, irises, and poppies. I have not been the first person to notice this bloom gap, not by a long shot, and the traditional recommendation is to plant tulips to bridge this gap.

Tulips As Annuals?

The only thing is, tulips don’t thrive in my clay soil and it’s taken me a while to get used to the idea of planting them as annuals. I have nothing against annuals–when they’re grown in someone else’s garden. In my garden it seems profligate to spend so much money on plants that won’t come back. I used to grow a lot of annuals from seed, but discovered they need the most babysitting (watering, potting on, etc.) right about when I need to spend the absolute most amount of time outside weeding, mulching, and generally asserting a modicum of control. So I tend to grow the kind of annuals that self-sow, which tulips are not.

This spring I finally got it through my thick head that species tulips tend to be more perennial than a lot of the more “woo-woo look at me” sorts of tulips. Here I’d been growing Tulipa bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’ for over ten years in the Crocus Bank, and it took me this long to realize I could grow it elsewhere. I did realize that the Crocus Bank was not the best place for it. In order for the crocuses to come back every year, we have to let the foliage grow to its full extent and go dormant. And while we are waiting for that to happen, the grass is growing longer, too. Consequently, by the time the ‘Lilac Wonder’ tulips are blooming, they get kind of lost in the grass.

The petite 'Lilac Wonder' tulips got lost in the high grass.

But on the other side of the driveway is the peony bed, which is looking for some action while the peonies get up to speed. A whole mess of ‘Lilac Wonder’ tulips would not get lost with some peony shoots as a backdrop. I had learned from planting the crocus bed that guessing how many bulbs one would need to plant a given area does not always work well. So the first order of business was to measure the length of the bed.

I needed to know the length of the bed in order to order the appropriate quantity of bulbs.

Shopping for Tulip Bulbs

Then it was time to go shopping. Brent & Becky’s Bulbs has the most information packed site. When I checked their information for Tulipa bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’, it told me I should plant 10 to 15 bulbs per square foot. Figuring 10 bulbs per square foot along a 15-foot length, I could have ordered 150 bulbs of ‘Lilac Wonder’. But I decided to buy 50 bulbs of ‘Little Beauty’, another species-type tulip, and the remaining hundred ‘Lilac Wonder.’ I thought the darker color of ‘Little Beauty,’ mixed in randomly, would add a little zing to the ‘Lilac Wonder,’ and I also hoped the inner color of ‘Little Beauty’ would match the outer petals of ‘Lilac Wonder.’ I’ll let you know next spring.

Here are the tulip bulbs straight out of the box.

Spent 2 hours cutting dead stuff down (mostly peony foliage), revealing weeds that will have to be pulled another day. Sigh.

Just deadheaded for 15 min. Long overdue & makes me feel better, even though it’s the tip of the iceberg

Planted 6 Henna coleus and the last 2 Mint Mocha coleus and Midnight Lace vine. All annuals finally in the ground. Weeding next.

Planted Redshift coreopsis and rearranged some heucheras last night and weeded here and there. The coreopsis is a trial plant from Skagit Gardens. On the tag it looks like it has a maroon ring around the center, so I planted it near the purple smoke bush. But in the accompanying literature it is pictured with a bright red ring. So it might not complement the smoke bush. I’ll let you know. The weeding was totally random: every time I saw one I felt like pulling out, I did. No rhyme or reason, and plenty left for another day. Raining again now. All the rearranged plants are getting a good start in their new homes.

I finally uncovered my ‘Endless Summer’ and ‘Forever&Ever’ hydrangeas. I had discovered that dumping a bunch of dry leaves over them in the fall was sufficient to protect them from the erratic spring freezes that we have. The old branches help hold the mulch in place, and I cut them down in the spring when I remove the mulch. You can see a few of the old branches in the photo above.

We have had frost in the first week of June in other years, and even though none was predicted for this week, well, we’ve had frost before when none was predicted. I’d rather uncover them a week later rather than have all their new growth blackened after weeks of waiting. That’s a certain way to lose a season’s bloom.

You can see the small, pale leaves that have been hiding under the mulch until now.

This ‘Endless Summer’ now has some size to it. I had two very small trial shrubs, and when we had our hard freeze on May 19th, one got killed and one got severely damaged, despite having leaves mounded over them and plant containers covering them. If you tend to get lots of “surprises” during spring, you almost can’t protect them too much.

I have some organic fertilizer for acid-loving shrubs that I will scratch into the soil as soon as the rain stops.

How are your hydrangeas faring?

Planted 2 King Tut papyrus and 3 Augusta Blue Skies nierembergia, and weeded the front bed where I put the nierembergia.

Carol’s done it. Mary Ann, the Idaho Gardener’s done it. So has Mr. McGregor’s Daughter and Cindy from My Corner of Katy and M Sinclair Stevens from Zanthan Gardens. They’ve all used a reciprocating saw to prune woody plants.

Not only have they pruned with a recip saw, they raved about how easy it made pruning. I’m surprised to hear myself say this, but they made it sound fun! I have a pair of heavy-duty loppers and a pruning saw, but what I don’t have is a lot of upper body strength. Most of the time, when I need to cut back forsythias or lilacs, I reach for the nearest teenage son and volunteer him for the job.

Which is fine, when you’re talking about one forsythia or a couple of lilacs. But I’ve been eying an entire grove of Tartarian honeysuckle, an invasive shrub that has steadily taken over more ground during the twenty years we’ve lived here. It would get tedious, even for a willing young man, to cut them all down. But I figured two people, taking turns with the saw, could get the job done a lot faster–assuming it really did work on the bush honeysuckle as easily as it worked for those other gardeners.

When I tweeted that I was using my son’s saw for pruning, @torontogardens thought it sounded scary. I was already thinking about making a video about it, but her remark clinched it for me. This will take you five minutes to watch. Let me know if pruning with a reciprocating saw seems scary after you watch it:

I have already been taken to task for not wearing safety glasses and gloves, and rightly so. What was I thinking? Don’t be stupid like I was. Protect your vision and your fingers; both are irreplaceable.

I think the saw will be very helpful in the battle against the honeysuckles, but I still have to figure out if I should be replacing the shrubs with something else, or just wait to see what grows in its place.

How about you? Have you used a reciprocating saw for pruning, or for other garden chores? Share your experiences in the comments.