Container ideas for February - easy garden colour right now
Heading your way - a tiny spring bulb and a symbol of survival
January has departed, and it’s time for small beauties
When those tiny, papery and somehow thirsty-looking bulbs arrive in the autumn, it takes a big dollop of optimism and a dose of wishful thinking to plant them, whilst smothering that I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it feeling. For never was there a more unpromising bulb.
Yes, I know all bulbs, corms, tubers etc are mind-blowingly unprepossessing, but when it comes to Iris reticulata, hmmmm:
There’s just nothing there. Shrivelled bit of brown, dried up droppings which you tip out of a paper bag and think Really? I’ve paid for THIS?
You may disagree and cite other bulbs you believe to be far more unprepossessing than this one. And sure, all bulbs are brown lumps, but I think perhaps it’s the contrast between what you see and what you get that makes the surprise, well, so surprising.. The simple yet extraordinary reality that out of one, just a few months later, when all around it’s all still cold and unwelcoming, comes the other.
These tiny little mini-sword-petalled beauties defy everything the weather throws at them to flower when they do. Resilience is written all over them. I know that snowdrops have preceded them, and that the crocuses are on their way, but these little slips of velvet balancing improbably on the thinnest of stems are the early flowers that do it for me.
Plant these tiny late-winter flowers where you can see them
In groups on a table, by a door, up on a step, a little bit sheltered by the new foliage of protective neighbours. Anywhere where you’ll spot them without having to venture too far out into the garden while it’s so filthy out there.
I plant them in tiny pots and buckets that I can easily lift up and plonk within my eyeline; sometimes they go in meadows, if I think they’ll be happy with their future companions. And, if we’re really lucky, sometimes they naturalise:
The surprise never fails to amaze: the iris in the top photo were all planted in November and look at them here. All you have to do is choose them, pop them into pots around October/November and wait, knowing that it’ll be worth it in February when skies are grey (that’s now). You can put more of some in one pot; you can put just a couple in another smaller pot - they look fabulous however you arrange them.
It isn’t too late to get them - some nurseries are selling pots of these about to burst in flower: go and get your hands on some if you see any. Whilst it’s cheaper to buy and grow your own in the autumn (I’ll remind you at the time), the reward of these jewels - they really look like jewels - is worth a bit of a spend right now, and they’ll grow again next year.
The varieties I’ve used here are all really easy, I promise. Whatever your level of gardening, whether you’ve been green-fingered and/or thumbed for the whole of your life or whether you’re just starting out, this group of four kinds of spring bulbs is a can’t-go-wrong one: