Bulbs/ Flower Advice

[MillyMollyMandy78]

I am a complete novice but have decided to throw myself into improving our bland garden. I really like the idea of having flowering plants for much of the year. However, i know nothing about this.

If you had an area of your border in which you planted something like snowdrops, could you also plant bulbs in the same area for daffodils, and then something else to bloom in late summer? Do you plant them all in exactly the same place? Do they not compete with each other when growing? Or do you scatter them around your garden leaving empty spaces dotted around?

Also, if all in same area, does it disturb the plant if you have to plant bulbs later in the year? I hope i am making sense?! My favourite flowers are snowdrops, bluebells, daffodils and jasmine. Are these all easy flowers to grow? Any other suggestions on plants i can use to give me colourful flowers for most of the year? I would like to stick to a colour scheme of blues, yellows and whites.

Is it easy to grow a cutting garden? I love the idea of going out to my garden to pick flowers and put them straight into a vase. Sorry, lots of questions here, hope i get a few answers!

[MrsHoarder]

I plant all my spring bulbs in one session in the autumn so they don't get disturbed. I put the recommended spaces between each species and then filled the gaps with other species (so if 10 inches were recommended for daffodils then there were 2 snowdrop bulbs between each daffodil pair).

That way I had flowers from February to May and greenery filled in the gaps between the flowers.

I've now got sweet peas growing up the back of the bulb bed and a few small lavender shrubs but nothing else successful. The sweet peas are great for cutting flowers: they flower more the more you cut the flowers.

[ppeatfruit]

It depends a lot on the amount of shade you've got.if you've got deciduous and or pine trees in your garden, the direction it faces also your soil is quite important for bulbs like bluebells. (they like acid soil) but not too much wet.

They like shady woody places as do snowdrops. The other bulbs need sun in the spring and they'll naturalise eventually. Jasmine (I think) needs full sun and is a climber.

[ppeatfruit]

I've grown bulbs in pots in layers so they can mix quite well. daffs and hyacinths, and crocuses are good.

For a picking garden you'll need to 'nurse' up seedlings or small plants in a greenhouse or on a windowsill because there's not enough sun or warmth in England to put them out in the spring.

[ppeatfruit]

Unless you go for roses or some lilies which can cope with all year round bad weather!

[MillyMollyMandy78]

Thanks for all the info that really helps. Have got a dhaded area under a couple of trees for the bluebells and snowdrops, which will be perfect. Have also got a perfect sunny spot for the jasmine to climb. Cutting garden will prob not be a good idea for now, but thats fine as I will have plenty of flowers in the garden.

Never even thought of sweet peas, but they will look really pretty too. Mrs Hoarder - thanks for the explanation on bulbs. That makes perfect sense now.