That's wonderful! I like the way Carlton's color is echoed by the forsythia.

They are so pretty, and such a cheery sight in spring. That they live a long time and multiply so much is another plus. Are they just now starting to bloom up there?

They look fantastic!! I would plant more daffodils but they fade very quickly in my garden. Love looking at yours! 😍

Beautiful! How nice it must be to drive up or look out the window to see your spring flower display.

Did you mix in any other bulbs that bloom before or after (crocus, snowdrops, tulips, etc.)?

Lovely! What a cheerful spring view! It almost makes me want to plant 1000 bulbs! I would say you are well-rewarded for your work - and I agree, bulb-planting is miserable work, so I am very happy you got such a great result!

What are the other half/third of the bulbs you planted? Did they already bloom or are they yet to come?

:)

Dee

I would never have the energy to plant 1000 bulbs. Even asking DH to do half of them. I'm lucky if I buy 50 at a time...lol. Sometimes I get 25. Plus I wouldn't have the room for that many, but....I do love an abundant looking display of daffs and this spring I felt like I got that. I still have room to add more but in some beds they are chock full.

And I have a different way of planting. I don't enjoy planting bulbs, I don't know why. When I want a new variety, I will plant bulbs, but minimal numbers. Then in just a couple of years, they multiply under ground. Then I start digging some up right after the foliage has cured and before the foliage disappears so I can see where they are. I just use the extra bulbs and I pot those up. Then as soon as they are settled in their pots I can plant them where I want them. Or I can wait for Fall and plant them then. Works either way. They always come up great the next season. I have no idea why I prefer this but...it's another way of doing it.

Again, Deanna....LOVE that spring scene! You have everything working together for something special.

Do not give up on the squill!

Years ago, I went bulb-happy also. I planted about 100 squill in the side yard, thinking they would spread and fill in. Apparently, much of the yard was too wet for them (my side yard ends in a swamp) The next year, there were only about five of them. A couple of years later, there were none in the side yard, but one in the front yard near the front porch. Now, there is a nice patch in the front yard, and some coming back in the drier parts of the side yard.

I am quite mate-y with our council 'green team' so when we had an offer of doing a mass planting on the public land near my house, using a machine which plants hundreds of bulbs at a time, I did a list. We used large chionodoxa lucillae (Forbes Giant), tulip chrysantha, t. whittalii, t,batalini crocus, scilla, Sundisc and Elka, (mini narcissus.) It was the most amazing sight (and took less than 2 minutes to plant 2000 bulbs). Lasted for a good few weeks too, starting with the crocus and chionodoxas and finishing with tulips and jonquilla narcissus.

I had to cut down my summer meadow today because the original planting of wildflowers and native grasses has been invaded with horrible brome grass (a wild oat type) and running ryegrass. So no moon daisies, achilleas,scabious and knapweeds...even the cowslips might be counted amongst the losses...but I am going ALL OUT with spring bulbs, replicating the council mix with added anemones and pulsatillas in the mix. Sadly, I won't have access to the planting machine (and the space is too small anyway)...but with my trusty auger, I am hoping to get at least 1000 bulbs in place this autumn.

Inspired, Deanna - well done you!

Well, rosaprimula, you get 100% for the planting auger I purchased. You mentioned it in a post, and it was a fantastic suggestion. Now you up the bar with a ”planting machine.” Yowzer! If we all had access to that thing there might not be a bare patch in sight for miles to see. I sure hope you remember how to use your phone camera, because I can’t wait to see the display next year. It sounds amazing! Wow.

On a side note, I saw my first fritillaria in person at a botanical garden. I saw several beautiful yellows and three very special ones with variegated leaves and light orange blooms. They were amazing! The whole botanical garden was just astounding with bulbs, mostly daffodils. I talked to staff, and they said they have been moving away from tulips towards daffodils and the like becuase of their longevity and the desire (as well as need) to plant things that self-sustain. I think it’s very smart. They still had amazing tulips, but the never-ending daffodil river winding its way through the garden with hundreds of daffodil tributaries reaching into every corner was a sight to behold.

P.S. Did you ever post pictures of your kitchen with the yellow floor?

Not yet. Did I mention the fuchsia walls, moss green shelves and painted cabinets...I think the look is called 'maximalism' but I just call it LOUD. Went all out and made curtains, cushions, stencils, painted pretty much everything in a 2 month frenzy of colour. Saw me through a dull November and December...but I do have to mop the floor every day.

My eldest, also a pro-gardener, (we enrolled in hort.school together, back in 2005) planted a 'river of blue' alongside a long yew hedge - muscari, squill, chionodoxa and anemone blanda. I helped. We borrowed a mechanised turf cutter to make a shallow trench, 2 metres wide, and literally dumped buckets of bulbs, topped with tonnes of topsoil and sparsely reseeding with native grasses.He works for well-off customers with fabulous houses, who think nothing of handing over 5K and letting him run amok.

Narcissus are really self-sustaining because they tend to not get eaten (unlike tulips and crocus), as well as being really happy, naturalised with grasses. And can stretch from late January (February Gold and Rijnvelds Early Sensation, right through to Pheasant's Eye and Sundisc in May).

Wow, I want one of those machines! Lol, there have been several very inspiring bulb threads here this spring and I am picturing myself sitting very grumpily in the mud on a cold miserable November day surrounded by bags of bulbs muttering to myself "what was I thinking?"

But this is what I was thinking - I'm thinking these very inspiring bulb threads have gotten me to say, the heck with the fact I DETEST planting bulbs! Look how pretty! It's SO worth the misery of planting! I am going to have to re-visit these threads this coming November to get real inspiration when I truly need it hahaha!

Deanna I once grew fritillaria meleagris - it didn't last long in my garden but I did so love that little checkerboard pattern and the nodding bells. I should try some again.

I also just wanted to give a shout out to one of my favorite daffs, Quail. They are my latest-blooming, longest-blooming daff, a jonquilla type, and they just seem to have such staying power, still there when the early spring frenzy of blooms is gone.

I had just the opposite problem with squill (scilla siberica). I planted some in a customer's garden and it went wild. Not necessarily in a bad way, but it was supposed to be all white (or was it all blue?) and somehow they sent me a mix, or a few wrong of the wrong color got in there, and so the display was not what I wanted. The customer absolutely loved it though, so I guess that was okay. It got so every spring I was just ripping handfuls out, mostly because instead of spreading more into the bed,which would have been fine, they were spreading more into the lawn. It was a nice spring display though, with the added benefit of doing well in a bed where not much did well.

This was from SEVEN years ago, so you can imagine this patch has more than doubled by now! Even at the time the photo was taken, this patch extended at least the same size if not more, over to the right. This is only about half the patch. All started from about a bag of about 50 little bulbs

And rosa, please DO get the photo thing straightened out lol! I so want to see pictures of your garden AND your kitchen lol. They both sound so intriguing and lovely!

:)

Dee

Oops, just found another picture of the squill, again, from seven years ago. Here's the white lol. I'm guessing I got two bags of bulbs, and one was blue and one was white, when they were supposed to be the same color (so long ago I don't even recall which we wantedd - I think white.) At least if the colors had been more mixed together instead of mostly blue next to a patch of mostly white, it would have been better. But regardless, they were very successful here. That whole area is filled in now

I start bulb planting in September (narcissus, small bulbs and tubers), leaving the tulips until last, sometime in mid October. Autumn can be a lovely season in the UK so planting bulbs is not the onerous mudbath in freezy cold. I get orders in very early - expecting the catalogues any day now,...but do sympathise with those who live in chillier climes with shorter seasons...but actually, that would be a bigger goad for me because I am usually desperate for early colour by February and will do anything to brighten a grey English winter. Dee, you sow a lot of seed so you are well acquainted with the idea of deferred pleasure...you could start off with an easy collection of tiny species tulips in pots (you can plant them out after a year or two and get them in earlier than your suppliers would normally deliver. I mostly do a collection of iris reticulata, crocus and tulips as a stand-bye in case I don't get it together to do a big planting in the beds. I have been planting some very teeny hoop petticoats which sit on a shelf at head height, just outside my front door. I honestly cannot overstate the pleasure I have had from a couple of small terracotta pots filled with these...so please don't think enjoying bulbs has to involve arduous slogs in rain, mud and wind...when you can sit at the kitchen table with a bucket of potting mix and some 6 inch pots...