These short tips are designed to help you avoid failures and give you success without having to worry about too many rights and wrongs. You haven’t missed spring yet but to get going you need a quick win!

Quick Wins with Bulbs

It is hard to go wrong with bulbs. (The flower is already sealed within the bulb and they just need a bit of help and protection from you).
In February you can buy pots of daffodils, tulips, grape hyacinth and crocus that have been grown for you. It is easy to put them into bare soil, a container or bigger plant pot and wait for them to flower.
I would take them out of the retailers pot as they will have been grown tightly packed together but I wouldn’t try to separate them. Plant them at the same depth as they have been grown so you do not need to excavate a deep hole.
When planted in the ground or a new container water them gently.
Daffs and crocus will flower again next year but the tulips may not survive (it won’t be your fault, it is just nature)

Summer Bulbs

• Summer bulbs are the next job to get great colour this summer with minimum know-how and effort.
• In March or April clear weeds from a patch of garden  and you have made a flower bed.
• Break up the top of the soil so water and air can get down to the plants then individually bury your bulbs twice as deep as the bulb . The soil on top of the bulb will be double the depth of the bulb.
• I would start with some short stemmed Lilies and if I know my garden is very wet I would but some sand or gravel at the bottom of the planting hole. If you are not sure which way is the top and what is the root then lay the bulb on the side and let the plant choose.
• Gladioli, Begonnias and Dahlia will all produce very colourful shows in summer. Glads have a nobbly bit at the top, begonias have a slight hollow and Dahlias have a twiggy bit to show which way up to plant them.
• Read the instructions on the packet for general guidance but you do not need to slavishly follow everything they say.

Lilies from Thompson Morgan

Plants by Thompson Morgan

Fill your borders and patio pots with a continuing display of super Lilies – as one variety fades, another comes into bloom. Lily 100 Days Collection is specially formulated for successional blooming.

A mix of Asiatic and Orientals lilies meaning colour AND fragrance! Listed in order of flowering time collection comprises:
Lily Courier
Lily Birgi
Lily Tresor
Lily Red Velvet
Lily Ambon
Lily Snowball
Lily Speedstar
Lily Golden Joy