Planting Snowdrops and English Bluebells

I came up with what I thought was a brilliant and simple idea. To plant snowdrops and bluebells under the LolliPop Trees Elaeagnus ebbingei and Viburnum Tinus trees. It would look beautiful in the cold winter months, white snowdrops peaking up in late January and as we begin to enter spring the bluebells would then come into flower. We have the perfect woodland setting and I felt the Snowdrops and Bluebells would compliment the trees. As I like to think about nature, I chose the snowdrops hoping it would provide any early bees with much needed flowers in the hard late winter and early spring.

I ordered some English Bluebells and single flower Snowdrop bulbs from J Parkers, 75 of each. I could do with more but they do naturalize, so in theory we should get more every year. This is enough to start with and the bank balance had to be considered.

There I was all excited and ready to plant, as I attempted to get the bulb planter into the ground the reality of what I was attempting to do hit me. I am trying to plant bulbs among the roots of trees, in clay soil that has had three children running around on all through the summer. Hard compacted clay with no real rain in a few months. This was not going to be the simple job I had visions of.

The truth, is it was very hard work. I started with a bulb planter, it broke after one go. Then a trowel and hand fork came out and nope that did not work. The last try was the small spade, it was still hard work, sometimes I had to stop and start in a slightly different place. It took me a good four hours over two days, though I am limited for time with a toddler. 

One small spade helping to dig the holes

I really hope they work and will keep you posted, I also learned a few lessons along the way.

Think about where your planting the bulbs - the area, the soil, whats panted around. Will your plants work there, Snowdrops and Bluebells are woodland plants so are ideal for under the trees. Most bulbs will tell you if they can tolerate shade.

Do you have the right tools - a sturdy bulb planter, I found a cheap one will not work unless you have a perfect soil. A trowel or small spade will help. Wrong tools and the job can really take a long time.

One rather broken bulb planter

I measured the bulb planter against the spade so I dug a deep enough hole for the bulbs.

How will they look when they flower in the spring as to how you plant them. I made the mistake of planting a couple of snowdrops as single flowers. So I then planted them in little groups of three.

Three little bulbs ready to grow

If you are planting over a couple of days maybe some little stick markers,  to show where you have planted the ones before. Again I learned this the hard way and they may come up in some random places.

Bulbs are an amazing way to get some simple colour in the garden and with the right tools are easy to plant and grow. For Spring flowering pants you still have time to get them planted and tuplis are best planted in November so lots of time.