Layering bulbs

Joannaskingston · October 2020

Hi everyone, just watched monty’s video on layering bulbs in a pot, I will use the same bulbs he used, tulips, dafs and iris, do I need to take them out of the pot and replant them when they bloom, or is it ok just to leave them in the pot?

Fairygirl · October 2020

Do you mean after they've bloomed?
Tulips rarely come back well, apart from a few varieties, and if they're reticulata iris, they're the same, but yes, you can leave them in the pots. Always good to give them a couple of feeds as the foliage dies back.

Dovefromabove · October 2020

As @Fairygirl says, I feed them well after flowering. They perform fairly well the next year and a little less well the next year. I usually plant them out after the second year and a few re-appear to brighten the odd corner.

Other than daffs and narcissus, I find that bulbs never perform as well as in their first year.

celcius_kkw · October 2020

Sorry to hijack this thread a little, but I have a separate question related to bulb layering and don’t want to create yet another thread to clog up the forum..

@Fairygirl @Dovefromabove I’ve recently planted my bulb lasagnes - tulips in the deepest layer, followed by daffodils. That seems to be the generally accepted way of planting bulb lasagne in pots going by the online videos various nurseries have produced. Now I just come across Alan Titchmarsh’s article and a few others saying bulbs should be planted at three times their depth. To me, tulips are clearly much smaller in size than daffodils, and by that logic shouldn’t the daffodils be planted deeper than the tulips?

I’m getting a little concerned as some say the bulbs won’t flower if they’re not planted at the right depth, and if that’s the case I’ve planted my 300 bulbs the wrong way, that is, my tulips are too deep and my daffodils too shallow?

Should I be worried? I’ve only just planted them a week ago so I could technically tip them all out and re-plant them, but with 300 bulbs to go through it’s gonna be a big job..

Fairygirl · October 2020

I wouldn't worry. Bulbs rarely lead the labels

It's standard to plant a bulb approximately three times it's depth. If the bulbs are smaller, it's usually for the following reasons - different variety, or a less mature bulb.

Just go by the bulb size - an early daff will have a small bulb compared to a big tulip, and vice versa. Species tulips are mostly small, so they wouldn't be planted deeper than a late flowering daff.
I personally don't plant tulips with other bulbs as they generally need totally different conditions. They need to be drier, and most daffs need moisture, for example.

Dovefromabove · October 2020

Depends a bit on the type of tulip .... but to be honest I doubt if you could plant tulips too deep in a pot unless it’s a very deep one.

Better a bit deep than too shallow ... I wouldn’t worry unless they’re the tiny botanical tulips.

BenCotto · October 2020

I have read that tulips planted about 6” deep have a better chance of flowering in year 2.

I plant my tulips deeply and they normally give an encore a year later but with limited enthusiasm. As I have not planted tulips at the more standard depth I’m not able to make comparisons.

I must say I am not enamoured by the fashion for bulb lasagne. There’s too much tatty dying foliage from the earlier flowerings for my taste.

Fairygirl · October 2020

They rarely look good in my experience @BenCotto, as they're usually not done intensively enough, and there's often an unsuitable mix of bulbs used.

purplerallim · October 2020

I have spring tubs that get brought out now and planted up with bulbs, plus pansy and viola on top for colour, then after flowering they get moved beside the shed and forgotten for the rest of the year when the summer bedding comes out.😁

celcius_kkw · October 2020

@purplerallim @BenCotto @Dovefromabove

I garden on a balcony so container planting is the only way to go.. I plan on treating them as annuals anyway. I intend to pull the plants out as they fade so hopefully no tatty foliage to contend with the successive waves of blooms.

So my bulbs lasagne cross section would look like this

For some reason my daffodil bulbs are much larger than the tulips.. not all, but the Narcissi S Winston Churchill bulbs I got were absolutely massive compared to any of my tulip bulbs - at least three times bigger..

And here is a snapshot of the bulb lasagne demonstrated by J Parkers

As you can see the tulips are again planted first in the deepest layer.. in this instance the daffodil bulbs aren’t bigger.

One thing though that I have overlooked is checking the flowering time of each daffodil and tulip variety that I planted (I have over 13 varieties of tulips and daffodils each) - I suppose it would make sense to plant the earlier flowering variety on top of the later flowering ones.. although generally speaking tulips should flower after daffodils this may not necessarily be the case..

After further searches I have now also found pictures of people planting their large daffodils at the bottom with tulips on top.. gosh is there not a general consensus on the right way of planting them..?

Fairygirl · October 2020

It's as I said earlier- plant by the size of the bulb.

Layering bulbs

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