Plant in fall, bloom in spring

Planting a bulb is like hiding away a gift for the future.

Be it a tulip, a daffodil or a bearded iris, a bulb planted in the darkening days of autumn will erupt from the soil in spring with a beautiful surprise.

“It’s just like when you put in a tree. It’s giving a gift to the future because life is uncertain,” says Lydia Constantini, who manages Sonoma Mission Gardens in Sonoma.

November is the time to be planting bulbs if you want them to bloom in spring. And Constantini suggests that bulb planting on Thanksgiving can be a meaningful ritual.

“It’s a great tradition to start,” she said. “Have everyone who is coming to dinner bring a pair of tennis shoes and a bag of good quality daffodils. Then announce that nobody gets to eat until they’re all planted. Then invite everyone back for an egg hunt in spring when they’ll be blooming.

“It’s especially good for children to see what they’ve done, putting these ugly little bulbs in the ground and then watching them come back as beautiful flowers. And for a small amount of money,” she added, “you can have a delightful display year after year.”

Start with one patch of ground and add another year after year until your landscape is awash in color come spring.

Usually the earliest bulbs to poke their heads up are paperwhites and crocus in January and February. Then come the narcissus and daffodils, snowbells and grape hyacinths, followed in early by spring by tulips, bearded iris and giant allium.

Of course that is only a very general rule of thumb. There are many different varieties of each bulb, some early bloomers and others late bloomers.

Now and later

Susan Hatch, of King’s Nursery in Santa Rosa, suggests planting some early-, mid- and late-season bloomers to keep the display going and as added insurance in case one group fails. It’s fine, she added, to plant spring bulbs through December and even into early January as long they are stored in a cool, dry place. Those planted later will bloom later. If you’re going to store your bulbs for a short while after buying them, keep them in a bag with holes. They need air circulation. Never put them in a Ziploc bag.

Sonoma County Master Gardener Sandy Metzger has this tip for buying bulbs: If you’re picking them from a bin, choose the larger bulbs. They will result in bigger blooms.

Refrigeration

To chill, or not to chill?

For most bulbs, refrigeration isn’t necessary. Hatch said years ago Sunset Magazine tested tulips and hyacinths to see if mimicking winter’s freeze by refrigerating them before planting produced a better bloom. For bulbs planted in Southern California, it did make a huge difference. But in cooler Northern California, the cold bump brought only slightly better results.

Dig a hole

Planting bulbs is pretty simple. Dig a hole two to three times the length of the bulb. Usually it will be clear which end is up. The top will be more pointed and the bottom may even have some shoots. But if you’re uncertain, said Constantini, just place them on their sides and the flowers and roots will find their way.

Not all bulbs follow the same rules, however. Ranunculus are like a little claw. Plant those with their pointed heads down. Metzer said Amaryllis belladonna, those gangly-stalked pink flowers that pop up in late summer, does better if the tip is slightly exposed. If they’re planted too deep you’ll get more foliage than flower, she said.

Add a little bulb food like Sure Start containing mycorrhizal fungi, which helps break down soil. Try to cluster bulbs, putting multiples close together in the same hole for a more pleasing effect when they bloom.

One-time soaking

The beauty of planting bulbs is that once you’ve given them a soaking after planting, Mother Nature will take over from there.

The variety of things you can plant is almost endless. A fun thing to plant and have before Christmas is Crocus Sativus, which produces the flower from which saffron comes. To cooks, saffron is like gold and seems to cost nearly as much. But you can grow your own, says Constantini. They produce a small lilac flower. As they bloom, pluck out the orange-red stigma. That is saffron.

“It’s easy to do,” she said. “Leave the rest of the bloom on the plant. Just take out the orange stigma and dry it for a day or two and put in a little class vial or canning jar. About a dozen flowers will give you enough for a good-sized paella.”

They take only a month to bloom, so if you plant now you could have a crop. Some delicate strands of saffron in a jar make a winning hostess gift for holiday parties, Constantini said.

Mix in a pot

One of the things Hatch at King’s Nursery loves to do is mix bulbs with other winter blooming flowers in containers for a multi-season display. The most striking results come when you choose just one or two varieties of bulbs, she said, and then mix in the pot flowers with complementary colors. In cool weather choose among pansies, violas, Iceland poppies, paludosum daisies, nemesia and calendula.

Fill a pot - bigger for larger bulbs - with potting soil mixed with a cup of Osmocote and 3/4 cup of Master Start per cubic foot of soil.

Begin with a layer of amended soil no less than three inches deep. Set your bulbs i the soil leaving space for the flowers above.

You can arrange the bulbs in a solid grouping in the center or in an “X.”

Cover the bulbs with a depth of soil about two to three times the height of the bulb, up to about an inch below the top of the pot.

Add your winter flowers to enjoy now.

As an element of surprise, Hatch says, you can add a sprinkling of seeds like Baby Blue Eyes or a Bulb Blanket mix.

Water now and as the soil dries. In the spring, your display will come to glorious life.

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com or 521-5204.