Monty Don says November is the perfect time for one job that could see tulips flourish in your garden come spring time. Tulips are spring-blooming perennials that come in a wide array of hues including white, deep purple, and orange.
They’re an eye-catching addition to any garden, that can give your plot a spectacular burst of colour. Monty, horticulturist and lead presenter the BBC’s long-running Gardeners’ World programme shared a clever tip to ensure your tulips look their best when spring arrives and it might well be easier than you think.
In the latest episode, he explains that every year he takes the bulbs of tulips he’s grown in pots and stores them in crates, keeping the biggest and getting rid of the smallest ones.
He shows his method for planting these larger ones in long grass, “anywhere where we can mingle them in, with bulbs of all kinds to make what we call, a tame-flower meadow”.
Monty is seen taking a handful of the bulbs and tossing them onto the area where he wants tulips to grow, explaining that placing them won’t work if you wan’t it to look natural.
Instead he advises throwing them and planting the bulbs you’ve collected where they happen to land.
For gardeners looking to plant large numbers of them, he recommends get a bulb planter, a gardening tool which can be plunged into the grass to to neatly pull out a plug of soil.
Monty is seen stepping on the tread and twisting the tool to work it into the ground before lifting it out and popping in one of the bulbs pointy-side up.
You can then dig out the next one while the plug from the first is still in the barrel. The plug will be pushed out as you do so and can be put into the first hole and pushed down, he explained.
Monty says once you get some momentum you can repeat this process and quickly plant a couple of hundred bulbs.
He explains that the tulips that were taken from the jewel garden at his beloved garden at Longmeadow meaning he’s got bulbs which will bring a rich array of colours, including orange, purples, queen of night and others.
The gardening guru says the mixture of border hues make for a beautiful sight, contrasting with the “naturalness of the grass and the hedges and the spring light”.
Monty says you’ll get the best results if you them “as deep as possible”, adding that the perfect time for the job is November.
“But don’t worry if you can’t do it till December, he added, explaning that tulips are planted later than most bulbs “because there is a fungus called tulip fire which can rot the bulb,” and the “best way to avoid that is put them in after some cold weather”.
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