Bulb beds in a Hurry

As usual, I seem to be running so late with my electronic life, it is becoming somewhat farcical. We thank you for your patience.

Starting a new garden from scratch is more daunting than I remember. Given the limited space, one should really have waited until things settled down before ordering and planting. But then I realised that life is not a sentence in a book and all the advice one reads assumes we all have neat ordered little lives; which is often never the case.

So a new gardener faced as we were with cement, paving and lawn, looks to plant bulbs and other plants in the quickest possible time.

Ideally, one would spray the area with a glyphosate, and after the die back, feed and water again for several months, then spray again before planting.

But we do not live in an ideal world. And in our case, we had the added pressure of friends dropping in with the gift of freshly dug bulbs in the green; all in need of urgent planting.

So, here is a solution, which I'm hoping will be adequate for me and hopefully will prove adequate for you should you find yourself in a hurry.

Over the freshly watered grass, we placed fairly thick cardboard packing boxes, which over time will degrade and allow roots of growing plants to penetrate deeper.

Then our potting mix, (you can use which best suits your climate and growing needs) was piled a foot and a half deep. Said potting mix in this instance was equal parts coarse river sand, good grainy volcanic loam and finely hammered pine fines.

After this was in and the first plantings of bulbs were added, we topped it up with complete bulb food and extra trace elements watered in with seasal; then added a new blanket layer of fine hammer mill bark. The latter is for asthetics. Mulches add to the beauty of the landscape by providing a cover of uniform colour and interesting texture to an otherwise drab surface. Dark colored mulches widen the pupil of the eye, allowing more of the sensible light from flowers to enter the eye. Consequently, those dark mulches give plantings a more attractive appearance; bliss.

If you do not have thick packing boxes, perhaps you could use carpet underlay, making sure it is organic and not nylon; because you need this

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