My favorite bulb planting tool is a short 3-gallon bucket with a lid/seat on it. It carries other tools, and provides a good seat, and I do most of my bulb planting from a sitting position.

The next is a tool called a Soil Scoop. It's a hybrid hand tool; a cross between a scoop and a trowel:

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(Mine has a yellow handle, and they also come with wood handles.)

I almost always plant bulbs in clusters of at least several, so I use the tool to scoop out an appropriately sized and depth hole, lay out the bulbs, and backfill.

If the cluster I'm planting is bigger than a foot or so in diameter, I use one of these:

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They're hand forged stainless steel spades made by Sneeboer, in The Netherlands. They're short, sharp and made to be used from a sitting, kneeling or squatting position.

I use a shovel most of the time. It's just faster for me to dig one big hole and plop the bulbs at the bottom than a bunch of smaller holes (when planting clumpings of tulips, daffs).

For crocus I just use my Soil Scoop hand trowel.

For hyacinths I use the hand-held bulb planter thingie or the hand trowel, either works fine.

I have an auger and I used it all of one time in my other house about a decade ago. It just didn't work well, the clumps of clay (east side of town = clay bed) would stick to the auger. I haven't used it at this house, where the soil is more loamy, so not sure if it works better in loamier soil (it probably does).

Eh, give me a good shovel and I can plant anything in a snap!

Yep, that's the Soil Scoop I have. I LOVE that thing!! So much better than a standard hand trowel. It's probably my most-used tool.

If the soil is in condition for planting it will not matter the tool used. The thought of planting in soil requiring a drill to make the hole makes me run to the compost pile to spend that energy on the soil, not the drill. Al

I wanted a bulb auger in the worst way so DH bought me one. Never used it because after I got it I found out the auger my friend had used to plant 1000's of King Alfred daffodils on her property was backed by a very large Kubota. I like a short D-handled garden spade to dig holes.

I use a tree planting bar. It allows me to plant daffodils in the lawn and get down really deep. Of course it works in the garden too. Once deep, I turn it sideways to make a bigger pocket. I carry a bucket of soil with me to cover the bulb after it's in the bottom of the hole. (much easier and tidier than the usual tree planting method where you make a second insertion and shove soil over.)

It works well for squeezing bulbs in between perennial plantings and shrubs, because it makes a narrow slit rather than a big hole from a shovel, but allows you to plant deeply. Also no plug of soil to remove and fiddle with.

I know it's not marketed for bulbs, but it works great for me.

Here is a link that might be useful: tree planting bar

I tried a bulb auger last year. I bought it for my husband as I thought it would be fun for him to use his drill. Unfortunately, our soil is all clay and just stuck to the auger and did not work at all. It was easier to use a trowel to make a crevice, drop in the bulb, then lift out the trowel. I'll have to keep an eye out for that Soil Scoop.

OK, now this is cookin', thanks for all the suggestions. I have tried the soil scoop, doesn't work for me, but I think I like the looks of that tree planting bar, gottagarden, so I am going to try to get one. Shovels just make too big a hole for planting individual bulbs in my experience. I have planted 500 tulips in a day before, and I can't imagine doing that with a shovel. And my gardens are crowded, (yes, even the new one...) and I am looking to tuck bulbs in among shrubs and perennials. Can't do that with the shovels I generally use.

Thanks for the different ideas.....

I have both the bulb auger and the tool you step on to remove the plug of soil. Neither one works very well for me. The bulb auger does not have any indentations on the end that you put into the drill, and I can't get the drill chuck to tighten and stay tight around it - so the end result is my drill stripping the metal off the bulb auger. Last year my husband tightened up the chuck for me and it worked for a few holes before he had to tighten it again - but this year I planted while he was at work and ended up using a shovel. My bulb planter that takes a plug out does remove the plug - but I have clay soil which was damp when I was trying to plant (both last year when I bought it and this year) and I can not get the plug of soil to come out of the tool so I can make another hole. Needless to say, after buying both of these gadgets I am a little ticked to be using a shovel!

I use a bulb auger (assume you mean the kind that attaches to a power drill) sometimes. I sort of like it, especially for larger bulbs like lilies, or when the soil is cold. I don't like it as much for planting smaller bulbs closely. My soil is sandy and easy to work with just about any tool (in fact most holes collapse in on themselves), but the auger can make the job go faster.

I have found the Bulb-Hound to work quite well. It is a step-on planter of very good steel. The hole making part has a handle to open it, releasing the dirt very easily. We have a lot of heavy dirt with clay. It stuck in my other, one-piece bulb planters, had to be cleaned out EVERY hole, with a screwdriver. Could not get dirt to fall out by itself. They were also cheaply built of the sheet metal, easy to bend with stepping on, trying to cut down into the hard dirt. I bent them pretty bad, very frustrating to use cheap stuff.

I really like the better built, real steel, of the Bulb-Hound tool. No bending, even if I jump on it for hard dirt. I have planted a fair amount of bulbs with it, not thousands, but a few hundred. It makes the larger hole, so you can put in a couple or one, depending on size of bulbs. It easily releases the dirt when handle is pressed to open the jaws.

Much less work to use in our hard dirt, than the ineffective soil scoop or messy holes of larger shovel. I naturalize a lot of spring bulbs, so am digging in grass or weeds, not usually nice beds, have tough roots to deal with. These small holes are fairly easy to make with Bulb-Hound, plant bulbs and refill with plain dirt topsoil Don't want real shovel holes, or fight of removing large pieces of well-rooted turf to plant deep enough.

I found my Bulb-Hound at the local Home Depot store, seems like it was $18-$20. Now a couple years old, still works well. I recommend it highly, a nice tool for bulb planting, much less crawling around, no fighting with the sticky dirt of my yard.