Planting 24 GORGEOUS Containers with Bulbs + Tips to Get Them to Survive Winter! 🌷🌷🌷// Garden Answer

hey guys how's it going today i get to plant up a bunch of our brand new concrete containers with bulbs that will bloom next spring i've been looking forward to this project for a really long time because i don't think i've ever really done anything quite like not this many i'm planting 24 containers today and never in containers this nice so this is going to be so much fun to kind of just like i get to anticipate this all winter long and i gather so much inspiration from so many gardeners around the world and i came across a few on instagram that do these really striking bulb displays in the spring usually at the entryway of their properties and they'll do a ton of containers on either side like i want to say anywhere between like 15 and 30 containers on each side of the entryway and they usually choose one or two different colors so that even though there's a ton going on it looks very serene and peaceful and striking all at the same time there's one in particular klaus dalby was the first one that i saw that did this and he actually swaps them out all through the season so he has a spring display of bulbs and then a summer display and then a fall display it's just so pretty and a huge thank you to flowerbulbs.com we are partnering with them to make this video they are an organization that and they used to be known as bulb.com we worked with them before in the past uh they're an organization that they don't sell anything they're just there to provide education and inspiration all surrounding bulbs which i can get behind that because that's my goal in life is to hopefully educate and inspire along the way they're funded in part by a european union grant which i'm not sure if you know but a lot of the bulbs that we purchase and grow in the u.s come from europe and like the netherlands area and it's just such a wonderful thing to do because even though bulb planting i'm going to admit is not my favorite garden chore in the fall like planting in containers is easy but when you're planting bulbs out in the landscape if you're doing a bigger amount of them it is a little bit of hard work but it's worth every bit of effort and that's why we do it every year because after such a long kind of barren stark winter especially those of us in a hello cheddar in a colder climate to see that just jolts of color in the spring that early color it just lifts your spirit it revives you after that winter and so it's just so worth it it's so good for the pollinators and anyway i just thought today i would show you all the things that i'm planting and then give you some tips on how to successfully winter them over in containers so that you can enjoy bulbs in them the following spring so i'm going to go through several different things the first of which is container options you can pretty much pick whatever container you like i mean bulbs look beautiful in simple terracotta containers you could even plant them in plastic containers and then put them down in something prettier the next year if you want to do that the options are pretty much endless because the way we're going to store them which i'll talk about later we'll put them in a position where they won't freeze because while some daffodils and smaller bulbs can withstand a freezing temperature a lot of tulips can't so we want to protect our bulbs in a way that they will come back really nice the next spring so basically any container is fine you do want to make sure though that whatever you're choosing will allow for enough room at least two inches below the bulbs for really good root growth the first container i'm planting in today is called the american renaissance planter from unique stone and one other thing i forgot to mention in terms of container choice you do want to make sure that whatever like you're planning the right proportions so if you're planning to grow something that gets you know allium that's 48 inches tall or a fritillaria that goes three feet tall you wouldn't want to choose a container that's small because even though it looks proportioned now because the bulb is really small you want to take into account that end growth height because in the end it would be way too top-heavy it wouldn't be appropriate so for taller things you want to choose taller planters for you know shorter things shorter planters and so forth um so in this one i'm planting a tulip called double flag and it is a double blue grows about 14 to 16 inches tall and blooms early through mid spring the thing about planting depth and spacing and that's kind of the next section i want to talk about is in containers you know you want to usually use the planting guide on the package it usually tells you how deep to plant them and how wide to space them when you're doing it in containers you don't necessarily have to plant them as deep as the package tells you to like in this case it tells you to plant the tulip bulbs six inches deep however if you do follow that advice on depth they will stand taller and they will be stronger so i typically try to go as close to that as vice as possible but when you're talking about spacing you kind of want to abandon all the spacing guides because this one says space it three to six inches apart and now that is great for the landscape especially if it's a type of tulip or daffodil or what have you that wants to naturalize and spread you want to give them some room but in a container you want to space them about an inch apart because you want this to be a striking gorgeous display so what i've done here in this container let me remove this bag we've already put a layer of soil you just want to use regular potting mix i've got the espoma organic potting mix here no garden soil nothing from outside you want to make sure that the container has drain holes that's really important and we've put a layer of soil in here to where we have about seven inches from the soil level here to the top because in the end after i put six inches of soil on top of my bulbs i still want to be within an inch from the top of the container because we want room to water before we put our bulbs in we're going to put in a little bulb fertilizer i'm using bulb tone you can use something like bio tone if that's what you have on hand i use a lot of that basically what this does is help them produce a really strong root system so you have a really good strong show so i'm just going to sprinkle a little bit this of this on the surface and then we'll be good to plant all right i'm just going to make sure that that fertilizer is kind of spread out evenly all right fertilizer looks good so now i'm going to lightly moisten the soil before we put our bulbs in just a little bit of water i'm not talking like sopping wet just damp like that try not to make it extra heavy on aaron's back okay so now we are ready to plant here are the tulips here now i have 70 tulips which i think is going to fit this perfectly because i've already planted one and they fit perfectly in that but what i like to do if i'm not sure if i have enough bulbs to fill my container i start in the center and work my way out because if you have to you can always leave a little bit of planting room around the outside of the container so that in the spring you can come in with ivy or violas or pansies just to add that little extra pop of color and that way you're not kind of spacing your bulbs a little bit further apart than you should be and that sort of thing so let me get all the bulbs lined up on top of the soil surface so you can see what they look like when you are planting your tulip bulb you do want to make sure you grab this right here that you're planting pointy side up so this pointy side is where you'll get the leaves and the blooms and then if we flip it over here you can kind of see the bottom here this is where the roots will form now if you're not sure what side is top or down on whatever bulb you're planting just plant it on its side it will find its way up in fact some guides will tell you just plant them on their side they grow really well that way but i tend to just do pointy side up so just like this start right in the center just nestle it right down there and then we'll start spacing our bulbs about an inch apart [Music] so that's what it should look like when you get done planting your bulbs i mean they're spaced really nicely you can go a little closer together if you have to you can also spread them out a tiny bit if you want as well but when you plant them like this about an inch apart that just produces the most amazing thick show of color so now i'm going to top up the rest of this container leaving an inch lip right here at the top and then i'm going to water it in one more time and we're not looking again to make it sopping wet we just want to make the whole soil just kind of on the damp side that looks great now water it in this one is all done it looks great and i cannot wait to see what it looks like in the spring and before we move on to planting the rest of these containers there are a few other tips i want to run through first off the moisture level what we should be shooting for all throughout the winter months what temperature they need to be kept at and then also where to store them and i'm going to break it down based on our growing zones because all of us are a little bit different so let's talk about moisture first what we're going to shoot for is soil that is slightly damp never too soggy and never dried out and that will mean something different based on your growing zone which i'll talk about here in just a minute but basically like this right here it was kind of the initial watering so it's a little bit more wet it will probably be a couple weeks before i have to water this again if you're storing it somewhere like we'll probably be putting it in this cold frame if you're putting them in a unheated garage or a shed or something like that they won't be receiving any natural moisture from the sky so they'll be completely dependent on us to keep them moist so i usually set a reminder in my phone every two weeks to go check all of my containerized stuff throughout the winter months because it's kind of the last thing on our mind and that way we make sure that they maintain that moisture if you're keeping them outside and not in a protected building you do want to make sure they don't get too wet so if you get a ton of rain and it might be a case where you need to put a board over the top to help eliminate that excess moisture the next thing is temperature so all of these bulbs that we plant in the fall typically need a cold period somewhere between 8 and 16 weeks depending on what type of bulb you're dealing with of temperatures between 35 and 45 degrees what that cold period does is it helps trigger the bud to form so that they'll bloom the next spring if they get too short of a cold period oftentimes they won't grow very well the bloom will be kind of malformed it's better that they have a longer cold period than a shorter cold period and you don't want some of these bulbs to be subjected to really deep freezes or you know too much of a freeze at all daffodils and some of the smaller bulbs can handle it but like tulips and hyacinths can't so you want to shoot for like between 35 and 45 degrees and that brings me to my last thing which is where you can store your containers and this is very dependent on your climate your growing zone so i'll break it down as best as i can kind of in general based on your growing zone so those of you who live in a zone 9 through 10 it's too warm throughout the winter time to plant bulbs like this in the fall and expect them to bloom in the spring so most of the time you need to chill your bulbs which means you can buy your bulbs you can put them in a cooler or refrigerator somewhere that stays between that 35 and 45 degrees for the amount of weeks that they need to be in that temperature and then you can plant them in your containers in the spring and they'll grow just like they would for me you're just doing it at a different time of year in zones seven through eight that's kind of the sweet spot for keeping your containers outside because most of the time in your zone it'll stay cool enough between that 35 to 45 degrees for long enough to keep your bulbs happy it's something you will have to kind of monitor especially on the higher end of zone 8. you know it might be a situation where it's easier just to chill your bulbs and plant them in the spring but i would go ahead and give it a try in the fall put them outside somewhere make sure they maintain the right kind of moisture level if you receive too much rainfall like i mentioned earlier you might need to put a board over the top to keep the excess moisture out if you have squirrels and mice and things like that that want to get into your bulbs and eat them you may need to put a piece of like a hardware cloth or chicken wire or something like that to keep them out for those of you in zones five and six which is where i'm at sometimes i plant bulbs outside and i get away with it if we have a more mild winter like we did last year i planted our front containers and our entryway full of bulbs left them there all throughout the winter made sure they got water every once in a while and they bloomed beautifully i had some in urns along our west side that bloomed beautifully but it's kind of a it's a risk when you put them outside so this year i kind of want to keep them in our cold frame because i really want this display to be amazing i want to treat them as best as i can so in zone five and six unheated garage a tool shed or something like that a shed that's not heated a cold frame that will provide a little bit of extra protection so that the bulbs won't freeze in your container is a really good idea you can also wrap the containers with bubble wrap you can put burlap around them you can snug them all together like on the south side of your house where they'll receive some moisture maybe some radiant heat off the side of your house i'm just somewhere where they're a little bit more protected some people will even especially if you're planting them in plastic containers and you plan to put them down in a nicer container you can just bury them in the ground container and all you can kind of heal them up with soil keep them insulated that way this case it wouldn't work because i don't think i could talk anybody into digging me holes big enough to put all of these concrete containers down in the ground so i think a cold frame is a good idea for us and then for those of you in zones three and four definitely don't want to risk putting them outside you'll want to put them in somewhere where it stays a little warmer so if you've got a garage that maintains enough heat to keep them in that 35 to 45 degree range that's kind of the sweet spot it might be an option too where you can dig them in the ground and then just heal them up with straw and leaves just to keep that insulation layer in that case you'll probably need to use hardware cloth or chicken wire or something to keep you know rodents and things hardware cloth probably work better smaller holes to keep the rodents out of them if you're burying them in the ground but those zones you just really have to be careful because it gets so cold you wouldn't want to just toss your containers out you want to make sure that you find a spot that's 35 to 45 degrees all right so now that we've talked about how to plant them and how to get them through the winter what do you do when you start seeing some activity in the spring you start seeing those little sweet shoots of green coming through the soil that is the indicator of what time you need to be moving them outside because green shoots equals i need sunshine in order to grow and produce properly and at that point of the year it's usually warmed up enough that it's totally fine to move your containers out from their storage area into their location keep in mind that if they're in more indirect light like even just morning sun rather than full-on afternoon sun or all-day sun they will last a little bit longer and then in terms of aftercare when the bulbs are all done blooming there's a couple of different ways you can handle it first off you can treat them as annuals you can toss them plant new stuff in them a lot of times you know when you're talking about tulips in particular a lot of varieties aren't super strong at returning every year so it may not be worth the effort of planting them out in the landscape you know i'm planting a lot of daffodils and hyacinths which really do come back well for us every year so i will probably prioritize getting those planted in the landscape i may not worry about the tulips as much or if you want to try planting them all out in the landscape i mean you're really not out anything except a little bit of work what you do at that point is you would leave the bulbs in the container you remove the bloom stock and you leave the leaves until they are yellowing and starting to die back and that's kind of the indicator where you can pull them out of the container replant them in the landscape cut off those dying leaves and then watch for them to bloom the next year and that's it for the tips you guys now i have some planting ahead of me we do have most of these filled halfway with soil so i've got that step done so i'm going to go through do fertilizer bulbs get them all watered in and then i think i'll take you through a little tour and kind of show you each set of pots and what i've planted in each one and i picked out things in purples and whites so i think it's going to be such a pretty spring display so here we go i'm going to do some planting [Music] [Music] all right all 24 of them have been planted and watered in so now i want to walk you through each one of the containers and show you what i put in each one now i have a little tag with a small picture if we can find a better picture to throw up on the screen we will do that okay so we'll start here with the trough planter which i already talked to you about the double flag tulip the double blue 14 to 16 inches tall early to mid spring bloomer and these two large rope and weave containers i did fritillarias look at how pretty so these grow quite tall 12 to 36 inches mid to late spring and they've got the really dark colored bloom but i think that this container this size of container will be perfect for that type okay moving on to these smaller containers we've got the small rope and weave and these which i got some of the tags wet so we've got the carnegie fragrant giant hyacinth so really beautiful early to mid spring bloom pure white in these corinthian urns we've got pueblo daffodils which are a really pretty clear white with a pale yellow center and medium rope and weave we've got ice princess tulips just one got quite wet but you can just see it's a clear white tulip and there's 20 of them in each one of these containers and then moving on to this side these two these are lemon pots the medium size have enchanted evening tulip mixture so purple's pink's white and there's 30 in each container and then we've got the medium and small bow jardineers and this one has a blue is aimable tulip so it's a single blue tulip light spring 20 in each one of these containers which actually fit really well those bulbs weren't super huge and then in the smaller size we've got snowball daffodils which you can't really see with this picture but you can tell they're creamy white in the small lemon pots we've got chicago hyacinths which are kind of a bi-color white and lavender and then in these two containers they're kind of low bowls i really like them these are the only ones i did like a mixture because i didn't have quite enough of any of these to make one container so i thought they would be pretty altogether and i think i still might have room to pop a few violas in in the center of each one i've got the cinepell daffodil white with the green center and then surrounded those by with the blue jacket hyacinths and then surrounded the hyacinths with the wild blue heart tulips and then graduating up in size for the low bowls these are full of mount hood daffodils or these giant white daffodils 35 in each container and then the very last containers these are the toying jardineers with the little lions on the side we've got replete daffodils which when they first start blooming i guess they have an orange center but it says they quickly turn to pink which is kind of what i want and that is what is in all of these containers so this should be super fun next spring it's always nice to know when this project is done and they're tucked away for the winter and we can kind of get excited about what's to come i think what i'm going to have to figure out because in those displays that have inspired me so much they were all kind of raised at different levels because i can't just group all these containers together on the ground there's not enough height variation and to make that work so i'm gonna have to figure out how to get the height and still make it i don't know all work so i do have a couple of big pillars i can use for a couple of the containers but then i've got to find some kind of like maybe iron risers like metal risers almost like a bench system something like that but we've got a few months to think about it so anyway thank you guys so much for watching i hope this video was fun to watch and i hope it was helpful and we will see you in the next one bye

Channel: Garden Answer

Views: 590,309

Keywords: Garden, Answer, Laura, Flower, gardening, gardener, beautiful, succulents, diy, grow, green, Proven, Winners, Fall, Winter, summer, spring, plant, planting, growing, plants, succulent, shrubs, shrub, bush, soil, dirt, earth

Id: -9wi7HGmQp4

Length: 20min 33sec (1233 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 19 2020