to plant my grape Hyacinth, just found some in the garage, lost for weeks .
Thank you.
well just bung em in somewhere, they might not be so great this year but next year and every year after that they will be fine. Give em a chance even stick them in a pot on the doorstep and plant them out when its a bit warmer.
x sunloving
I've still got a bag 50 daffs to put in yet.
Not everything will survive, but this is a good time of year to buy daffs cheap; they build back up over a couple of years. But do check the bulbs are alive before buying! Poundland, for instance, often sell bags of dead narcissi, and I've seen similar things at Wilko's.
This may be a really stupid question, but how do you know a bulb is dead? Squishy or mouldy, hollow, yes, but is there anything more subtle?
Look at the bags in Poundland in the spring. A lot are dried out, soft, and obviously dead. If you squeeze a bulb and it's hard, it's usually OK as long as it's a sort that can stand drying. Some, like snowdrops and cyclamens, can't stand drying, and should only be bought from specialists.
Thanks Robert, pretty much what I thought, can I be excused from Poundland please ;)...
I thought snowdrops were only ever moved 'in the green' anyway, I'm surprised cyclamen are a problem since mine seem to dry themselves up and lie around on the surface pretending to be dogt..ds when dormant!
Moving snowdrops in the green is actually bad for them unless they're going to be replanted straight away. The one advantage is that it guarantees that they're alive. Very often the bags of dried bulbs aren't. I don't thik knocing about on the surface is very good for cyclamen, but at least they'd normally have sonce contact with water. It's not like sitting in a heated shop for ages!
I am not convinced that buying daffs at this time of year is very good. I bought some along with some tulips a few years ago and carefully chose really hard ones. The tulips did very well but the daffs only showed once and were never seen again. Daffs root in the autumn and build up the bulb so someone told me that once this is missed they never really recover.
I've bought them this time of year, planted them along the lane outside my plot, where they have to mix it with ground elder and all sorts, and after a couple of years they flourished.
It's perfectly true that they build up the root system in autumn. But as long as they're alive and cheap, they've got a very good chance of getting through the crucial first summer, and you haven't lost much if they di disappear.
Wonderful! One of those threads just as I was thinking about the subject! Was given a bag of narcissi today. Will bung 'em in tomorrw and hope for the best.
Cheers, CLx
I just bought a load of bulbs which were going for 50p a bag. Freesias Tulips, crocus, hyacinths and so on.
They looked healthy enough, firm, some even starting to protude a tiny green growth.
I asked a bloke who was also buying some what he thought the chances were. He said that the trick is, when planting late, to plant them slightly deeper than normal and this would help the roots to form
Sounded by the way he spoke that he knew what he was talking about.
I have just been on the 'met check' site for the next two weeks and it looks like we are getting a lot more bitterly cold days in February so Spring could be delayed this year.