There’s nothing quite like spring bulbs to lift the spirits and, with a difficult winter looming, I think they’ll be needed even more next year. While I always plant up pots with single varieties, I also love making a bulb lasagne.
It may sound like cooking – note most bulbs, especially narcissi (daffodils) and tulips are poisonous – but it’s really just a way of getting the most out of your pots by cramming them with bulbs that will give a long succession of colour.
My main bulb order is due in a few weeks’ time so I headed out to a local nursery for the ingredients for my bulb lasagne.
Most of the bulbs I chose were varieties I’ve grown before. Crocus ‘Prins Claus’ has a lovely two-tone flower with an elegant shape. Tulipa ‘Sunlover’ is a sheer blast of sunshine and who doesn’t love the slightly mad flowers of Narcissus ‘Rip Van Winkle’. I also bought the dainty dwarf Iris reticulata ‘Harmony’. It has blue flowers, which should go well with the orange and yellow violas that I bought as the final layer for my bulb lasagne.
Do check the flowering times of bulbs. My tulips are April/May so should follow on from the March/April daffodils, which in turn will take over from the February/March crocus and iris.
Of course, flowering times can all be altered by the weather and where you put your pot so it pays to make sure bulbs will look good together if they overlap.
I wanted to keep the cost down so reused a pot that was given to me many years ago by a friend who was moving house. Any large pot would do – just make sure it has enough room to space out the bulbs.
The first ingredient was a layer of peat-free compost. I used a multi-purpose but there are peat-free composts that have been specially formulated for bulbs. They’re not cheap though and it was a big pot!
The first bulbs to go in were the tulips as they will flower last. They were well spaced out to give an even display. I covered those with a couple of inches of compost and then added the narcissi. Don’t worry about putting them on top of the bulbs underneath as the shoots will find their way out.
This process was repeated with the iris and then the crocus to finish off the bulb lasagne.
Finally, I added the violas to give some instant colour but you could top the pot with some gravel, or leave it as bare earth. And you can scale up or scale down the bulb lasagne depending on the size of your pot.
The bulb season is only just starting so there’s still plenty of time to fill a pot for your garden.
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