[omnivorette]

Hello, I am a feeble lazy inexperienced gardener. So now that we have that on the table...

I want to plant bulbs this coming weekend, upstate. It gets cold early there...there could be a frost by mid-October.

I'm thinking about daffodils, crocuses, tulips - what varieties should I get? What do I have to do other than plant them deep enough and spread apart enough? Do I need to add fertilizer?

What is the deal with "hardy mums?" I know they're allegedly perennials, but is it always true?

And if I want blooms from early Spring through the fall, I have to plant some annuals after the frosts are over, near the perennial bulbs?

We're in Zone 5A.

Help.

[Rose]

Believe it or not, one of the biggest and best bulb importers is in Bantam CT which is a part of Litchfield. Their site is chock full of information and you can order online:

John Scheepers

[Rose]

There's also, in Litchfield, White Flower Farm, one of the premiere nurseries in the country:

White Flower Farm

[Rail Paul]

I've found white flower farm's customer service to be very good on specific situations, like deer resistance, or higher than average altitudes within a USDA zone.

WFF has extensive gardens at their HQ so you're able to see various arrangements, season by season.

[omnivorette]

I'm not going to Litchfield. Whatever bulbs (or whatever) I get I'll get nearish to the house. What I need is advice on what to buy and how to plant.

[voyager]

We have a naturalized field of daffodils in the country (California Mother Lode) as well as extensive banks of them on our roadside frontage. We do nothing special in planting new bulbs except add a small measure, perhaps a half cup, of bone meal to the bottom of each hole. We add several hundred bulbs a year plus we haul up any pots from the city that have been gifted us during the year.

What we have learned in 20 years:

The giant sacks of Kind Alfreds sold at Orchard Supply and similar category-killer DIY stores create equal or better blooms and have a better record of subsequent year activity than the extra fancy bulbs bought by us and by neighbors from specialty nurseries. As much as I have tried to prove my husband wrong, we have not found any longterm advantage in buying very expensive bulbs. Last year, in fact, our neighbor had a very poor second year showing of bulbs she bought from a specialist.

Gophers move daffodil bulbs. They will come across a daffodil bulb and move it some distance, realize that they don't like the taste and abandon it. Result: in the spring we no longer have groups of KAs and whites and yellow-and-whites, but a random planting. And after a few years of marking and moving these prodigal bulbs, we have just let the gophies have their way.

This is better than our luck with tulips. Gophers eat tulip bulbs. Score to date: Gophies 100%; us 0.

Deer and sheep do not eat either. They will chomp off a blossom to taste it, but don't graze on them.

Enjoy. There are few plants that give so much pleasure over time with such little input.

[omnivorette]

Ay ay ay, this is a lot of work! We bought a wild rose bush and planted it this morning, spread it out, fertilized, and mulched.

Now I'm working on the bulbs - I got lots of daffodils, crocuses, snowbells, and some other things I can't remember -the bulbs look like onions - similar to hyacinth but not. I looked for the little deer resistant graphic and was mostly careful to get only those things marked that way. We cut a whole new round garden, at the center of which is a lamppost, and I've been shlepping stones from the woods to edge it.

There are SO MANY ROCKS in the soil, it's unbelievable.

[Rose]

omnivorette, on Sep 30 2006, 02:54 PM, said:

There are SO MANY ROCKS in the soil, it's unbelievable.

Hence, so may stone fences.

Don't forget daylilies.

[omnivorette]

The guy at the nursery told me that day lilies are deer magnets.

[voyager]

omnivorette, on Sep 30 2006, 11:54 AM, said:

Ay ay ay, this is a lot of work!....There are SO MANY ROCKS in the soil, it's unbelievable.

Our place is in the Sierra Foothills. Site of Hearst's gold mine. 2" topsoil, 1' rotten shale, 6' clay, then quartz/bedrock. We never try to plant until after two good drenching rains. Then, we put on all manner of ugly outerwear including kneepads, collect the year's bulbs (bought and saved), and go out. I bring photos of various areas at the peak of last year's bloom, we put stakes where the photos indicate there aren't already bulbs planted, and...I point to a spot, my husband hacks a hole, kneels, I hand him, uh, around 8 bulbs, one by one, and we go on the another spot. By the last hole, we are not so concerned about number of bulbs. Dig, toss, cover, groan... But think of the spring!

[omnivorette]

Oh god, we definitely got into that dig, toss, cover groan mode. I'm sure there will be a section that's less orderly than the rest - I was thoroughly sick of doing it by the time we were finished. My back and my hands and my wrists are all killing me. But the new garden looks great - I found plenty of good-sized stones for the edging, and the bulbs are all buried and safe and sound and covered with mulch.

If I plan to keep this up, I need kneepads and better gloves than what I have - I need gloves with pads at the palms. And some better and stronger tools.

It is spring yet?

[omnivorette]

A tangent, but here goes.

My wrists and hands and forearms really took a beating yesterday, and I was quite sore when I went to sleep, even after a long hot bath.

This morning, I woke up with both hands asleep, up to about mid-forearm, little sensation in them, tingly, and uncomfortable. The left hand snapped back to normal quickly when I moved it around, but the right hand took a long time. Then I went back to sleep for a couple of hours, and when I woke up - same thing.

Now they're both just stiff and sore, right worse than left.

Maybe I just really overdid it? Never happened to me before. Any experience with this kind of thing?

[GG Mora]

Yeah, you overdid it. I've done that before. It's really uncomfortable, but a little Ibuprofen should help. It'll cut down the inflammation in the tendons, which is likely what's causing the discomfort. Icing couldn't hurt, either – about 15 minutes each side.

[yumyum]

Hey omni -- you'll love seeing the flowers come up in the spring! By then the sore hands will be a memory and you'll LOVE seeing the blooms. I can confirm that day lilies are so not worth it if there are deer and you have an unfenced yard. If you're not all done yet, you should consider starting a shady grove planting of lily of the valley. Over time, they spread nicely and the scent is gorgeous. I like to cut the little stalks in the spring and place in a small crystal vase next to my bed. Really seriously lovely.

Hope your hands/wrists/arms are feeling better. ugh.

[voyager]

Besides using more common sense in judging how long to stay at this kind of punishing work in one sesssion (and we are seldom successful in making this call), we use a two-pronged approach: 1) prophylactic dosages of Advil before these work details, and 2) daily dosage of glucosmine and chondroitin. You can ignore this advice if you are under 40.