Be Bold With Your Bulbs
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- MaggieM
- Cottage_Garden
- Carol Wallace
- Cottage_Garden
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» MaggieM - Wow, Barbara!
Thanks for all the great information and the links!The squirrel ideas are most welcome, our local denziens even eat the tulip buds when they come up.
The tips suggest using chicken wire, on the soil surface under mulch. Could you put the chicken wire lower down in the bulb holes, over the first layer of soil, water the bulbs then fill in to level and then top off with mulch? It seems to me this way when you come to cover the dying back bulb foliage, you don't need to remove it? And since our "rats with tails" dig bulbs all year round, they'd still be protected.
My bulb order is in, but I'm sure I didn't buy enough, so I'm going to go to the garden centre to get some more.
-- posted by MaggieM
» Cottage_Garden - Glad to hear the article is helpful!
Glad to hear the article is helpful!! I know it's hard to think of limiting to planting all one thing in a big sweep, and the numbers are mind boggling, but it really does make the difference.One day this week I noticed bulbs for sale at the local big home center. For the most part they were prepackaged collections, 10 each of several different small bulbs all the same color and then maybe a handful of tulips in the same color. The picture on the package made it look like they would all bloom at the same time -- NOT!
ANd I felt bad because I knew so many people would be disappointed next spring when the effect from that one sack was nothing like the picture on the front. It would take about a dozen sacks to get much of an effect. Oh well.
Squirrels are a pain. I have given up with tulips for the most part because of them. The chipmunks eat the crocus like candy, too -- fall and spring! SO I have a lot of daffodils.
I think there are several aspects to the chicken wire question. One is that the wire will rust away eventually and be a bit nasty to work around (have you had your tetanus shot recently?) so leaving it at the top makes it easier to find. Leaving it at the top also makes it very difficult to plant through unless you use seeds for, say, annuals. But I don't see why you couldn't bury it deeper. (This won't stop them eating the buds, though!)
I have noticed that once tulips have survived in place for a year they are much less likely to be dug up in following years. Most of these are the cottage tulips and species tulips, so maybe they smell different or taste bad, but this is what I have noticed.
I'm wondering how you are covering the dying bulb foliage? Usually it is enough to have something coming up/growing up inbetween them or in front of them?
Another suggested method of keeping the critters away in the fall is to plant, water, then lay old window screens on top for a while until the ground no longer seems freshly dug. Then remove it so the plants can grow unimpeded. Another one is to dip each bulb in mole repellent just prior to planting. These wouldn't help much the rest of the year though.
My best suggestion is to keep a pet dog or cat to act as resident deterrent.
One last caution -- be careful when buying bulbs from two different sources. Sometimes they don't quite match even though they are called the same thing. Just keep that in mind if you are planning to plant all in one big swathe.
-- posted by Cottage_Garden
» Carol Wallace - A rumor I've heard
Is that small burrowing critters only burrow about 6 inches deep - so if you plant your bulbs deeper than that they ahve a better chance of survival.-- posted by Carol Wallace
» Cottage_Garden - Six inches
Six inches would be okay for tulips and daffodils, but kind of deep for crocus and some of the small bulbs.... and over time the crocus seem to work their way shallower, too. Oh well.-- posted by Cottage_Garden
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