ITT: Gardening!
 

I know there is at least one award-winning gardener here who has been featured in a magazine (okay, a sorority magazine- but the cover story!). I'm assuming there are others who enjoy gardening or have to deal with it anyway. I'm somewhere between the last two. It isn't spring, but there's still plenty to do: plant or divide bulbs, plant overwintering vegetables, prune trees, and other cold weather prep tasks.

I just bought a bunch of bulbs and I've never planted bare bulbs before. I have a few varieties that will bloom at different points of the season so I want to intermix them. Are there any pitfalls I should avoid, or tips to make these things bloom in the spring?

Here in the South, we aren't guaranteed a winter of low enough temperatures to ensure that bulbs bloom, so we put them in a paper sack in the refrigerator for 6 weeks in the early fall and then plant them.

The biggest threat to bulbs here are the squirrels that dig them up. Sometime they move them around too. I now have a daffodil in my front garden that was moved from the backyard!

The previous owners of my house did a cool bulb garden on the side of the house. There is a whole row of daffodils and then a whole row of lilies of the valley. The problem is, they planted the daffodils in front. So they bloom early and then just look like big green plants. The lilies of the valley are behind them and when they bloom, you can't even see them. Not smart! I always say that someday I'm going to dig them all up and reverse them but... it hasn't happened yet.

When I was a university horticulturist, we bought some expensive bulbs and for those, we made little cages out of chicken wire to repel the squirrels. You just have to make them bigger that the bulb so it can grow.

I'm planning on planting some bulbs here in a few weeks. Tulips, some daffodil varieties, and maybe some hyaciths. The house we moved in to had some GORGEOUS well established rose bushes. I've enjoyed pruning and caring for them all summer. They've out out some amazing blooms! I was a little scared at one point because they got some black spot fungus, but I went and bought some crazy expensive spray and it's worked like a charm.

That is hilarious! Even more so because you are an ΑΓΔ. We have a lot of swuirrels, but they don't seem to dig things up much here. It doesn't freeze often here so there's more food above ground, I assume. I remember my first winter in Wisconsin- one of my culture shock moments was wondering "but what do the squirrels do during the winter here??" Ha.


Hmm so would you revommend putting the early flowers in the back, and late ones in the front? Or is it more of a height issue?

Boy, that was over 30 years ago. :(

And it lives on thanks to GC ;)

and Mrs. Wells! Oh thank you, Mrs. Wells, for coming into the garden with a camera when I was digging around in jeans and a UK T-shirt! OMG.

I would put early in the back and tall in the back. They messed up on both counts!

UK t-shirt? Why haven't I seen this wonderful article and picture by now????

I keep thinking I'm going to put bulbs in, but 11 years later I still haven't. Maybe this fall?

You should! Experiment along with me :D

And thanks AGDee- I'm going to look at what I have and see how to make it work. I have daffodils for mid-spring and tulips for late spring. I have a border walkway that has been through many iterations of plantings over the past 4 years and none of them has been a winner yet. Maybe these will pull it off.

I also bought three kinds of blue irises- light blue, dark blue, and blue & blue. I was amazed to find those options at Lowes and Home Depot! They will go with my purple irises in another spot, though... I need to figure out how to divide those too.

Carnation- I seem to recall you saying that dividing irises can be tricky. Any tips?

We just planted our fall garden-- one of the pluses of living in south central Florida. But we had such a lousy crop in the spring/summer that I really hope this one does well. We were having problems with critters (we live in a nature preserve community), but we're going to start putting out or humane trap right when the fruit starts to come out, so maybe we can actually have some our tomatoes! :)

You divide iris rhizomes where they get narrow in between. You might want to go to a garden store and get some antibiotic powder to dust the cut surfaces with so that you don't get soft rot.

AOIIAlum, lol! I'd been working out in the gardens for hours and the Kappa national president showed up out of the blue, all dressed up, wanting a picture of the new KKG iris I'd bred. (The UK tee came from one of their cheerleaders at summer camp.) Words can not describe how awful I looked and *she put the photo in their magazine*. Aggghhhh!

Not sure which critters you're having problems with- but you could consider bird netting. We built raised beds for our tomatoes and screwed PVC pipe to the sides so we could insert thinner long pieces in them to form hoops for hanging bird netting. Amazingly we haven't had to employ it- but have it ready just in case!


Awesome, thank you! I'll go find some of that to be extra safe.