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| Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard |
| If you have space to devote a garden specifically to bulbs, try planting in formal patterns using sheared boxwood hedges as a border and backdrop for an elegant display. |
Bulbs – they’re big, beautiful and bold. But they can also be small, dainty and subtle. There are just so many species of bulbs available, there’s bound to be one (or several) that fits perfectly into your garden. Whether you want to create a formal planting (based on repeated geometric patterns and symmetry) or natural groupings (informal drifts that continue to expand through the years), bulbs make a wonderfully colorful focal point.
In fact, when it comes to gardening with bulbs, one of the first decisions you should make is what kind of planting approach you want to take – formal or natural? Don’t know which is for you? Visit some public gardens and parks during the seasons the bulbs you like are in bloom – such places often include extensive bulb plantings as part of their seasonal color displays. Notice how well the beds and borders there are defined in formal settings, or how well the gardens mimic the feel of natural woodlands. Check out how small spaces are used in the garden, and observe how the bulbs are arranged in each planting area, especially with consideration to color and texture. | Add Photo to Journal |  | | Photo Credit: ©2002 Dolezal Publishing/John M. Rickard | | Play with your sketchpad to design your bulb layout, breaking up large planting areas into similar smaller ones that repeat themes. (Formal plantings like these call for strong geometric lines and color use.) |
At home, grab a sketchpad and some colored pencils to experiment with some of your own bulb designs. Start with the arrangement of your beds themselves. Will you define their borders with edging materials, raise them to create new elevations and planes or allow them to blend seamlessly into their surroundings? Will you plant several bulb species or match colors? Will you have all the beds bloom together in one glorious explosion of color to celebrate the season, or should you plant a spectrum of early, late and summer bulbs to create a long succession of flowers?
If you’ve got a large back yard, the designing process is easier to tackle if you divide your space into sections – each with its own planting. For example, an area beneath paired trees would be a good spot for overlapping circular plantings. A winding cleft between two natural rises would be a lovely spot for parallel drifts of bulbs that mimic the existing curves of your property. And it’s always a good idea to connect areas by repeating elements in a different color with another bulb species. For example, a large circular planting might have two smaller, irregular satellites nearby enclosing single, circular flower groupings similar to the larger bed. Another design technique is to create triangles between group plantings, then use the end points as boundaries for creating trenches filled with drifts of naturalized bulbs. Use two fully overlapped obtuse triangles to fill an irregular, U-shaped planting area, with central primary colors blending in shades to complement the edges. (Of course, this is just one idea – there are as many variations on this as there are gardens!)
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| Tips |
- Use string, hose or rope to diagram your bulb-planting pattern at the site since they’re easily rearranged and shifted. You can choose from many patterns for your bed: squares, rectangles, ovals and circles. These can be divided by halves or thirds, bisected by diagonals, or inset with grids and concentric patterns for really creative flower displays.
- When planting a border, plant the tallest bulbs in the back, stepping down in size to the shortest bulbs in the front so each type can be seen and enjoyed. (Planting beds are nothing more than back-to-back borders, with the tallest plants in the center and shorter species along the edges.)
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| Facts |
- Naturalized beds are more free-flowing than their formal counterparts. Curves replace straight lines, and the bed’s edges blend instead of meet. Sinuous forms, including kidney and paisley shapes, create drifts of color that appear as if spilled by Mother Nature upon the landscape. Though they’re subtle, planned forms also are used in these informal gardens, and they incorporate many of the same rules as those for geometric plantings.
- The keys to a successful formal bulb planting are straight lines, geometry and symmetry, with matching colors repeating several times as recurring elements.
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| Faqs |
- Q: Do my beds really need a border?
A: Well, they’ll look better if they do. Try using an edging material or plant double, staggered rows of bulbs to create frames for your patterns in a formal garden. Remember, blocks of contrasting colors are attractive and eye-catching. A red-blooming flower bed with a purple-blooming border is striking.
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