How to grow tulips

How to grow tulips

Transcript

00:00A really significant job for me is the planting up of the big pots both here in

00:19the Cottage Garden and in the Jewel Garden. And there are two planting seasons

00:22and they mark a major shift in the garden. In summer in the Jewel Garden we

00:27have gingers and pelargoniums and petunias and here in the Cottage Garden we

00:33had sweet peas this year. And then the next step is to plant up for spring and

00:37that's always tulips. And what I've done for the last few years is plant these big

00:42pots with a layer of three different types of tulip topped with wallflowers

00:48and it works beautifully. The first thing though if you're going to plant any tulip

00:52anywhere make sure you have decent peat-free compost. If you can get some

00:57grit and some leaf mold if you've got it, some garden compost if you've got it and

01:02mix it all up. The simplest way is in equal proportions. It means that it's

01:07really well drained, it's got a lovely texture for the roots to grow in and it's

01:12got a bit of nutrition. So we need a layer in the bottom for the first layer of tulips.

01:17Now the first one I'm going to plant is apricot impression. This is my quest for apricot. It's

01:32a pale orange flushed with pink. Tulips are very good at growing up through quite a deep depth of

01:42soil. And in fact the deeper they are, the longer and stronger their stems will be.

01:47I've said it before but it's worth repeating that when you're planting tulips in

01:53particular but bulbs in general, pack them into a pot. They look so much better if the

02:00color is just bursting out rather than spread rather thinly. So cover that over

02:04ready for the next layer. There's no magic depth of soil. It's it's sort of somewhere

02:17between three and five inches depending on the size of the pot. And then start again.

02:21And this time I've got a variety called Mistress. It's a lovely delicate pink with a slightly grey

02:31smoky cast to it. If you're planting in pots, always buy new bulbs because they're going to be

02:41big, they're going to be healthy, so you can be guaranteed really good flowers. Don't worry about the

02:50bulbs finding their way past each other. They'll do that fine without you. Cover that over.

03:01My final tulip is one called Menton. It's fundamentally pink but distinctly marked with a kind of pale orange.

03:13If you like pastels or you want to have pastels in your border, this is a banker. Okay, let's do these.

03:21The reason that we say plant tulips in November is primarily because tulips need

03:31cold weather to trigger them into growth. And if you go to buy tulips now, you can pick up good

03:38bargains. So don't feel you've missed the boat. Right, cover that over.

03:42So the tulips are nice and snug in their layers. And I'm going to put the wallflowers that I collected over

04:02the top so the tulips will grow through the wallflowers and you'll have them both flowering at the same time.

04:07And not only will you have the incredible display of the tulips, but you'll have that fabulous honey

04:13fragrance of the wallflowers as well. And the wallflower I'm putting in is one called Primrose

04:18Beda. The Beda series is really reliable and this is a soft yellow which should go with those apricotty pink tones.

04:33Having planted