As a landscape service provider in Nashville and surrounding areas, Acer Landscape Services would like to share some tips on planting bulbs in the Mid-South.
The beauty and color flowering bulbs bring to your garden is hard to match. With so many varieties of bulbs readily available on the market today, homeowners can have almost year round color in their landscape.
When to Plant Bulbs in the Mid-South
Some folks come from northern climates where planting bulbs must be done early in the season before the ground freezes.
This can mean September or October for some zones, but here in Nashville and all of Tennessee, we are zone 6B. That means it can stay pretty warm until well into November and if you plant your bulbs too soon, they will start to emerge and then get frozen when the weather gets colder (last winter we were 5 below zero!)
When should you plant bulbs here in Tennessee? Here at Acer, we suggest waiting until December to start planting your bulbs and finish by the end of January. This way you can be sure your bulbs won’t come up prematurely and it still gives them time to go through enough cold to break dormancy.
Tips on Planting Bulbs
- One way to visualize your bulb area for planting is to sketch it out on a piece of paper. Decide which bulbs to plant where based on height, sunlight, color, blooming time as well as how you will be able to view them easily from your house or as you stroll through your garden.
- Prepare the soil well. You may need to till an area to be sure the soil is loose and porous.
- Well-drained soil is important so that the bulbs will not rot.
- When planting, remember pointy side up!
- Small bulbs should be covered with 1-2″ of soil.
- Large bulbs should be planted 6-8″ deep.
- Spacing depends on the bulb type. It’s more natural looking to plant bulbs in masses rather than in neat rows.
- We have never found it necessary to add any type of fertilizer after planting our bulbs.
- If chipmunks are a problem in your area, consider butting chicken wire over the bulbs after planting to keep them from digging them up.
- After flowering, you may cut the bloom if desired but leave the leaves to die back naturally. They need the sun to store up energy for next year.
- No need to pull bulbs like daffodils up to store after blooming.
- Tulips, here in the Mid-South, do need to be dug up. It doesn’t get cold enough here for them to re-nbloom as well as they did the first time.
Live in Nashville, Tn or surrounding area? Let us know if you have any questions about planting bulbs here in the Mid-South. Need a landscape service provider? Please call us at 615-350-8030 x 17 or use our contact form online. Be sure to visit us on Facebook too!
Daffodils planted near creek
Tulips in the herb garden
Resource: van Bourgondien Garden Guide
