Winter bulb planting

gladiolas, various bulbs and last year's Irises

Bulb planting is so exciting! While I plant I am constantly imagining what a beautiful garden they will make in spring. It never turns out how I think... like last year I envisioned profusions of ranunculus and instead my Irises from the previous year gave a gorgeous show! There is only one tedious part to bulbs and that is- preparing the bed.

Preparing your bed for the bulbs can be very tiring, especially if you have stony, rocky soil like we have :( There is always a good side. Once you've dug your bed and replaced it with lovely soil and food you won't have to do it again. If you have perfect soil in your garden already, you don't even need to prepare the bed- unfortunately few people have perfect soil...

                                    

How to have successful bulbs:

• Bulbs need food and good soil. So if your soil is sandy, has lots of clay, rocks, roots (I'm sure there's some others no no soils)-you will have to dig a bed and replace the old soil with good healthy soil(buy potting soil).
• when planting near trees, make sure there are no roots that will interfere and take over your bed. Garden books usually say you should put a plastic sheet at the bottom of the bed, but plastic in a garden is a weird thought for me.
•  I have made new beds with success without bought soil when I thought soil was too expensive. Guess what I had to do?  Dissect the soil of all its stones and rock and that was way too much work! 
• Mix compost or organic fertilizer pellets with the soil
• Plant the bulbs!
• If you don't get winter rain or enough of it you will need to water them(especially if you planted tulips)
• I have found that feeding your bulbs with a liquid food when they start to flower, gives me healthy strong bulbs that will double or even triple the amount of flowers for the next spring. I have had great success by doing this. 
• Enjoy your flowers and take lots of pictures(:

From top left: the kind of stones I have to dig out, anemones the funniest shaped bulbs-they look like stones, and violas(not a bulb, just the only thing that was flowing when planted the bulbs)