My Bulb Lasagne

So after seeing quite a few people on TikTok doing this decided to plant a "Bulb Lasagne" myself

So nice tall Daffodils, beautiful pink Tulips and some lovely fragrance with the Hyacinths







Anyone else creating a "Bulb Lasagne" for next Spring?

 

I do quite a lot of lasagne spring planting, it can be a bit of hit and miss on what works some years are better than others. Pot is a bit on the small side for 3 lots but worth the go still.

 

I'm a bulb lasagne devotee and an expert of bad timings.

Usually I select early Daffs and early Tulips to go with them and later Tulips to prolong the display. A Crocus or Muscari or small Allium here and there, depending on what freebies JParkers has

Invariably, the bulbs decide to flower at wrong times, giving me rather unplanned combinations with the very summery mid- tulips belting their hearts out too early to overshadow the first spring sign- daffs, leaving the rest to happily mis-match whenever they please.

Not complaining though, any new growth in spring is most welcome!

My worst (or funniest, depending on how you take these things ) was a magnificent display of mid season Tulips (after the daffs) of 29 majestic pink tulips and one yellow. Thanks Poundland!

 

I never do them as I feel they rarely look good. The 2nd bulb is trying to flower while the first ones still have loads of foliage, and the same again if there's a third plant. They new flowers also tend to get covered up if the previous ones grow bigger than expected. Unless it's a massive container, where it's easier to have a more dense display, it can be very hard to get a good showing at all.
I prefer to cram pots with a single bulb type [and single colour] move them as the flowers die back, and replace with the next pot that's about to flower. It can be very difficult to judge the timing of flowering too, because it varies enormously.
I certainly don't plant tulips in with anything else as they need quite specific conditions. They don't appreciate the heavy rain we get here, while daffs and crocus, and many others, don't mind that.

 

I did them for a couple of years but now do the same as @fairygirl, with the exception that I put muscari in with tulips because that seems to work well.
When I did the lasagnes, either something would fail to flower or I'd just forget what I'd planted, so I'd have a grotty looking pot sitting on the patio for ages whilst I waited for something to happen. Then I'd give up and chuck it in the corner of the garden and after a few weeks would notice the alliums struggling in the shade.

 

I did a trough with my granddaughter last year and will do the same with different bulbs when we babysit at half term this year. She loved telling me what was coming up. Bulbs are good for getting kids involved in gardening.

 

I prefer to plant bulbs in borders. The soil is free draining here and winters quite mild so it's easier to let them spend winter in the ground and repeat flower the following year, if they want to . A bulb lasagne is a good way to experiment with bulb flowering heights, flowering times and combinations but I'd treat the lasagne as an annual display and then dispose of it. That way, to avoid an untidy look, as you're not going to use the bulbs again, you can just cut off the dying leaves of each type of bulb as they start to fade to improve the appearance of the next variety to flower. It's not an extravagant exercise if you use easily available bulbs. First time round it can be fun. Enjoy it @Will Hay .