Plan for next year's spring flowers now

Now is the time to take a walk around the yard and decide where you want the spring flowers next year.  Whether it is to enjoy a little color where you walk in the door or a quiet sunny corner of the yard where you take refuge in the early spring, this is the time to observe the bare spots that are begging for a little color.  Notice spots that will be under the canopy of broad leaf perennials that make ideal locations for the small, early spring bulbs.  Hosta gardens which are shady in the summer, may be nice and sunny in the spring which is perfect for the tiny little bulbs that give us the first colors of spring.

Make up some sturdy sticks or stakes with a bit of color on them and push them into the spots that you want to have flowers next spring.  They should be durable enough to last the whole summer and fall season, because fall is when you will be planting next year's spring bulbs.  I would also recommend that they stand up at least six to eight inches so you can continue to monitor their location through out the summer.  Make a map of where you have placed your stakes and keep it where you can find it in fall.  This will also be your guide for buying bulbs when the catalogs start arriving in early summer for fall planted bulbs.

Watch through the spring where your perennial plants are coming up and adjust your stakes so they are between plants and not in the middle of them.  Plant your annual flowers around the stakes to conceal their location for the summer.  Take care when cleaning out the garden so you keep the markers in place.  Keep in mind that after spring bulbs flower, you have to let the foliage die back naturally.  Cutting off their tops to squeeze in annuals in their place is a no-no.  Bulbs need to re-energize with photosynthesis before going dormant.  Plan on a smaller patch of spring color if you want to put annuals there in the summer.

Another options for a beautiful spring show is to treat the bulbs like annuals.  Some people have the cash to buy new bulbs every year and pull them out after the show to plant the same area with annuals.  With some of the showy, hybrid tulips this is not a bad option as many of the hybrids fade in glory with each passing year.  I planted a bed with 10 different colored tulips for my mother-in-law that became a bed of all pink tulips within three years.

Additional options include potting spring bulbs up into plastic pots which you can sink in the ground in the fall to over winter them (making sure they are at the proper planting depth according to their package) and then move the pots into place as they start to pop up the following spring.  With this method, after flowering, you can move the pots of leaves to a sunny corner to finish off the growing season.  The pots will still need water during this time, but you may be able to salvage them and possibly divide them up into additional spots for the next year.

What ever you decide to do to give yourself a little bit of color next spring, it will be worth all the planning when you are enjoying the show after a long winter.

Scilla among Periwinkle ground cover, early spring