Gardening Resources
Planting Spring Flowering Bulbs in Minnesota
Fall signals the season to install spring flowering bulbs, tulips, daffodils and the like. The joy received from these harbingers of spring is totally worth the little bit of effort it takes now.Tulips are probably everyone’s favorite, they come in so many colors, are a great cut flower and their season spans (depending on the season) from mid April until late May. Important details to know about spring flowering bulbs:
ALL BULBS
- Plant bulbs in any good garden soil, but preferably where they can be enjoyed up close and personal in the early spring. Probably not in the far reaches of your yard where you may not be wandering that early in the spring. Along an entry way can be a key locale or outside a favorite window.
- Install all bulbs pointy side up. If the bulb is not a bulb but a corm, not pointy, and you cannot tell which side is up, plant it sideways. The stems will come out sideways, but if you plant it upside down you will kill it.
- A good rule of thumb for how deep to sink any bulb is to bury it twice its height. If the tulip is 2 inches tall, the bottom of the bulb should be at a depth of 4 inches. This is especially important if the soils are heavy or clay. The tendency is to install too deeply and then the foliage comes up but the flower either does not bloom at all or a very small bloom opens up right on top of the soil.
- Place food to encourage root growth in the base of the hole. While bone meal works well as fertilizer, it has been known to invite dogs and other critters to dig in those spots. Just like all the plants in your garden, bulbs need water. Water after planting.
- To deter squirrels from digging up bulbs, place chicken wire over hole or sprinkle cayenne pepper on top of the disturbed ground.
- After flowering in spring, let bulb foliage wither and die. Do not remove spent foliage too soon as this is how the bulb stores energy to be able to bloom again the following year.
- An optimum location to place your bulbs would be in between existing perennials where the bulbs withering foliage would not be noticed. Daylilies and hosta provide a good foil for the bulb’s decaying foliage.
- If bulbs are mistakenly forgotten and not installed in soil in the fall, they should be discarded. They need to go through their regular growth cycle to remain viable.
- Every fall, established bulbs appreciate a top dressing of fertilizer to help them put their roots into the earth so that they can shoot their stems up right away in the spring.
TULIPS
- The only varieties that are truly perennial are Emperor Tulips and species Tulips (Kaufmanii, botanical, Greggi, typically rock garden types with flowers only 1 inch across).
- In Minneapolis, MN, (USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 4a), tulips bloom beautifully in their first spring, slightly in their second spring and by their third spring it may be time to remove them completely.
- Sometimes tulips are treated as an annual. They are installed in the fall, their color is enjoyed the next spring and when their flowering is complete, they are removed to make way for other annual plantings.
- To provide enough impact in a common sized garden bed, install at least 50 of 1 variety, i.e. all Darwin Tulips. You may mix the colors in that variety or have them be monochromatic.
- For an easy and dramatic display, dig a hole 12 to 14 inches in diameter and install at least 10 bulbs in each hole.
DAFFODILS
- Daffodils bulbs and leaves are poisonous, so they are the correct choice where deer forage.
- Daffodils bloom earlier in the spring than most other bulbs, before the deciduous trees have leafed out, therefore they are a great choice for the woodland, as it has yet to become shady.
- Daffodils perennialize and naturalize beautifully. As they can stay in place for many years, their design and placement is even more important than other bulbs.
MINOR BULBS
- Minor bulbs refers to the smaller bulbs; Scilla, Muscari – Grape Hyacinth, Crocus, etc. Most minor bulbs behave as perennials.
- Minor bulbs work as a wonderful jack-in-the-box planting with other bulbs. Place the larger bulbs in the hole at their appropriate depth and back fill the soil. Then place the minor bulbs on top at their correct depth. In the spring a mixed planting will be enjoyed.
- Established Muscari foliage will emerge in the cool of the fall (as well as the spring). Therefore it is a good signature plant, marking the area that bulbs are installed in case you have forgotten.
LITTLE KNOWN BULBS
- Try growing Lycoris, commonly referred to as Surprise Lily or Naked Lady. Their strappy foliage comes up in early spring along with the other bulbs but then the foliage withers and dies. Come August, as if out of no where, up from the ground springs a strong 24 to 30 inch stem with a bright pink tubular flower on the end.
- Alliums come in many shapes and sizes and all are worth experiencing. All bloom in very late spring, June or so. Most are purple or blue in color, although some shorter alliums are white, pink and yellow. The dwarfs are roughly 6 inches tall while the tallest grows to 40 inches in height. Flower head size ranges from 2 inches to 8 inches. They perform very well as a cut flower and no critters disturb these glories of the garden.
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