OMGosh, I have been SOOOO Frustrated. Usually, I buy bulbs in the Fall and don't get them all in. Last year, I didn't get ANY OF THEM in the ground. We had a heat wave a few days ago, so I planted the 35 bulbs that had been sitting by my back door since November. I put them next to the hyacinths that had popped up an inch and a half, and covered them up with any many inches of soil that I could dig out of my vegetable bed, previously tilled in the fall. Amazing that I could dig 4 inches, then hit frozen soil. I still need to covered them with some stall leavings from November, not as rich as today's stuff. Most of the bulbs were still firm, so it won't be a total loss.
I gathered all of the daffodil, tulip and crocus bulbs that I didn't plant, and I've been planting them in topsoil today, to force. THESE were left in the cold barn, in a dark rubber feed bowl, and every one of them had already begun to sprout, at least a little bit, so I'm feeling pretty good about them.
I have places to put them all. 3 crocus are now in a narrow terra cotta pot on the south facing kitchen window sill. 12 daffodils and 6 tulips were buried deep in my tree pot, the same one where my gardenia tree died in last month, plus 6 crocus. I thought I was pretty clever. I dug to place the large bulbs 8 inches deep, and then sunk table knifes in the potting soil before I covered them, so I would know where to plant the crocus and not put them right about the other buried bulbs.
I have a couple of hanging, plastic planters and those will go upstairs, one will be hanging by the window at work.
I had heard that daffodils will creep down if you bury them shallow. I believe that ALL of these bulbs do this. When I was digging last year I accidentally chopped a tulip bulb in two. I don't remember planting it, but it was fully 10 inches down in the soil, which I am SURE that I didn't do planting it.
Why so many bulbs? I had intended 2/3 of them for my DD's place. No problem. I'll wait until May, and then transplant them to a new location here and at their place. If I put in markers, we'll remember what color went where.
Steve
