Direct Bulbs Gardening Blog

Although we are now well and truly in the holiday season and wondering were all the good weather has gone it is just becoming busy for us as we take delivery of our autumn bulbs. The daffodils that are grown in Jersey have now arrived and many of the bulbs from Holland are starting to appear as well. I am not sure if you know but the UK grows the majority of the taller daffodils on offer by retailers, but Holland produces/markets the majority of all other bulbs that you see and buy.

Once we have the majority of our range in house we will start dispatching orders which as last year will be early September although we have already sent out a number of bulbs to be used as wedding favours in August.

Some varieties of lilies have been flowering for a few weeks already such as Stargazer and Landini, but many are now coming into their own such as this oriental lily Bon Bini.

Of course now is the time that the summer flowering bulbs take over the garden and such things as zantedeschia, crocosmia and gladioli are either starting in to flower or have good buds ready to burst into bloom. The dahlias (those that survive the slug attacks) are some of our most favourite and you can easily see why when they come into flower.

Dahlias offer a huge range of colours, heights and flowering times along with a long season of flowering (pick off the dead flower heads to encourage continual flowering).

The hanging basket begonias are also adding great colour to the garden and in a few pots we have the double begonias which are abundant with flowers. August is a time to enjoy the flowers from the bulbs planted in the spring and the time to also plan for the spring flowering bulbs and the show you want in 2010.

I felt that I had to post some pictures of our magnificent Dragon Arums which have now been and gone (some may be thankful due to the smell).

They are quite spectacular and certainly a talking point in the garden. They only open up for about a week but they certainly get the neighbours asking about them!

Well as far as bulbs are concerned it’s our in between season at the moment. We do have these magnificent Alliums making a statement in the front border but other than that we are awaiting our summer bulbs producing some blooms.

Allium Purple Sensation

I’ve started to plant up my hanging baskets and as well as the usual lobelia and hanging geraniums and fushchias, they’ve all got a couple of pendula begonias in them. Hanging basket begonias give a fantastic display throughout the summer and come in numerous colours to will fit in with any planting scheme.

Our lilies are also starting to bud, some further on than others and these will flowering in the next few weeks.  By planning the bulbs that you plant, you can get 10 months of glorious colour in the garden as the end of the spring flowering bulbs (alliums) merges into the summer flowering bulbs (lilies).

We started our canna bulbs in the greenhouse in March and they are now showing a good 4-5 inches of growth and we will be looking to plant them out into the borders and shrubs soon, especially as they enjoy the sunshine of which we are getting plently of at the moment.

My children are earning their pocket money at the moment as they get paid extra to remove lily beetles from the plants. These are so easy to see – they are bright red and make a clicking noise if you listen carefully!

The adults and their young (black, excrement covered larvae) are voracious defoliators of lilies and fritillarias. Adult beetles are active from March to October and can be removed by hand if you only have a small amount of plants or you can spray with insecticide.

Well, even though not much else is flowering at the moment, our amaryllis are providing a fantastic show of their usual stunning “triffid – like ” heads!

We don’t normally get around to planting our amaryllis until after Christmas but we are always guaranteed a late Winter/early Spring display.

The picture below shows the head with 2 more emerging shoots – one next to the one which is flowering and the other down by the base. This will ensure that we get a continuous show of flowers for many weeks.

After your amaryllis (Hippeastrum) has bloomed, it may seem past its prime, but don’t throw it away. If you follow these tips, you’ll have an even larger plant next year. After it has finished blooming, cut off the flower stalk to 1 to 2 inches above the bulb, and keep the plant, with its long, bladelike leaves, growing through the summer. Around September, place it in a dark closet, and leave it there to lie dormant for a couple of months; this simulates the drought conditions of the plant’s native South America. When you take it out of the closet, the leaves will have wilted. Just cut these off flush with the bulb, taking care not to cut any new flower buds that are starting to emerge, and add a little soil if it looks depleted. Water the bulb, set it in a sunny window, and don’t water it again until it shows signs of awakening. Your newly awakened amaryllis bulb will grow into a tall, elegant flower, which, if you time it right, will bloom just as next Christmas rolls around.

Well, after that recent freezing snap it seems our pots may have survived the frosts! I wasn’t sure if the initial growth that we had on our daffodils would come through but it looks like the shoots have managed to stay alive – see pictures below.

We also have signs of growth from iris, crocus and as you can see if the next picture, the snowdrops won’t be long before they show themselves.

At the time it always seems such an effort to plant bulbs at autumn or in our case winter. You’re stuck outside when you just want to be indoors getting warm in front of the fire but at this time of year when the new growth starts to emerge, you realise all your efforts will be rewarded with the forthcoming colours of spring!!

Well another new year is upon us and although it feels like the North Pole outside, hopefully it won’t be long until we can start to see the fruits of our labours from all that planting last Autumn.  I am hoping that at the end of January we’ll start to seeing some of our snowdrops and specie crocus starting to pop their heads up through the soil to say hello and brighten up the garden. 

well And as the Autumn bulbs are soon to be coming through, it’s also time to start thinking about the forthcoming Summer season and all those glorious glads, blooming begonias and dazzling dahlias.  It won’t be long before you’ll be standing in the greenhouse potting them up getting ready to harden them off after the last of the winter frosts. Roll on summer!!

I just wanted to share the last of the Summer colour as we still have some fabulous blooms in the garden, surviving the onset of the first frosts of autumn.

These are 4 of our dahlias which I took photos of on Sunday 19th October – pretty good eh!  Still providing colour to the garden and brightening the borders.  As you can see there are plenty of buds stil on them ready to burst forth - hopefully before the cold snap arrives!

Some of the other varieties still flowering are Nerine Bowdenii shown below in front of another dahlia and next to the Eucomis, which are also still in bloom.

Well it’s with the mild weather we’ve been having so far, the dahlias have been surviving really well! No blackened leaves and dying off flowers to be seen anywhere! We’ve had a good show of the miniature gladioli that we grew for the first time. We always grow traditional gladioli at the allotment but the miniature type are ideal for tubs as they don’t fall over and look fantastic in coloured ceramic pots.

Now’s the time to think about planting for next spring.  We now need to start thinking about emptying out the pots that used to have the summer bulbs in and storing those bulbs for next year to replant in the Spring.  This is what you need to do with gladioli - If you intend to lift them each year, you should ensure that after flowering the foliage is left to die down for a minimum of 6-8 weeks at which point they should be regularly fed with bone meal or similar because it is at this point the bulbs are building back their energy. Any roots will also have dried up and can be removed. The bulbs are then best dusted with yellow sulphur powder and the bulbs can then be stored in a dry, frost free area and will be ready for replanting in March/April.  During storage ensure that mice and rodents don’t eat them and check every few weeks. If they are not kept in a very dry environment, they will start to root quite early in the year.

Dahlias can stay in the ground for a bit longer – we’ve still not had those first frosts yet so enjoy the colour while it’s stil there!! 

Well our lilies are coming through thick and fast as well as a lovely selection of dahlias.  We have some gorgeous Asiatic lilies which have this mottled coffee centre to them – fantastic, as well as Pink Tiger lilies and some old favourites such as Regale and Yellow Splendour.

The dahlias, having survived the usual slug and snail invasion, are producing wonderful bursts of colour thoughout the garden from the yellow Bishop of York and red Garden Wonder to the wonderfully unusual “Pair of Giraffes” which come in both pink and yellow.  I’ve just planted a new border up with 8 varieties of Dahlia with some yellow double begonias at the front to add some colour to the lower section.

It’ll soon be time to start thinking about planting Autumn bulbs, but I think for the time being I’ll just sit back in take in the splendour of my current display – whilst trying to make the most of the few bits of sunshine we manage to get this summer – British weather – don’t you just love it!!