Just as the air starts to get nippy and when the monkshood flowers pop, you know it is time for bulb planting!
I have a number of narcissus varieties and quite a few other spring bulbs already, but the new back garden needs a little love. Unfortunately, since shipping bulbs for fall can fall after we leave, I had to use what i could find around the local stores.
I think the variety i managed to find will be lovely!
One of the techniques i like to use is planting tulips on the bottom with fragrant and unappealing to squirrels bulbs on top and/or nearby. I call it “stack planting” – you drill or dig a hole about 7-8” which is a little deep, but then put in tulip bulbs, a tiny bit of dirt, then your “distraction” bulb.
The idea is the squirrels or other rodents dig, find these nasty tasting bulbs and give up. Also having fragrant flowers like frgrant narcissus or hyacinth near you tulips while in bloom sometimes stops the little troublmakers from snapping thr heads off tulips, which they seem to love!
Some of the bulbs i use to mask the tulips and repel rodents are: alliums, fragrant narcissus, hyacinth, grape hyacinth, scilla. This might work with really early narcissus and crocus (aka squirrel candy) but Istopped buying crocus a long time ago – maybe I’ll try agsin with ghis method!
You can also spray a cayenne pepper tea (strained) or sprinkle cayenne or other ground hot pepper around your bulbs. A few encounters may be enough for rodents to look elsewhere. This doesn’t work on birds since they cannot taste the hot capsaicin in the pepper, so is a good deterrent on birdseed as well! If you have troublesome crows though, this will not work for them.
Bulbs in back yard garden – 110:
- (75) blue and purple tulip mixture called “blue moon” stack planted with (75) narcissus “early bride” and “slim whitman” on top, both white with yellow trumpet
- (30) mixed blue and purple hyacinths
- (15) white with green flame aka viridis tulips “exotic emperor” Stack planted with (15) narcissus “ice king” double white
Bulbs added to front yard garden this year – 150:
- (24) tulips “horizon” – red and white with green flame stack planted with (24) poeticus narcissus “misty glen” with green eye and (24) allium “persian blue”
- (12) hyacinth “jan bos” red/magenta
- (25) tulip mixture with darwin hybrid pinks and purples called “pride blend” stack planted with (25) double narcissus “replete” with pinkish center trumpet petaloids
- (15) narcissus poeticus double white fragrant “double poet’s” – not sure if that is an actual variety name
UprootedGardener 