Unboxing Autumn Bulbs & Making Tulips Return Every Year - Slow Living in our Cottage Garden

Hello and welcome back to our cottage garden. Today I'm going to be doing an unboxing of the bulbs that we're going to be planting this autumn and winter. I'm going to show you those and talk you through where they're going in the garden and what our plans are. So we're just heading into autumn now and I will be planting these slowly but surely. I don't finish until December, sometimes even January, just because it takes me a while to tidy up the other beds, get the dahlias out and replace them with tulips, that sort of thing. So we're not going to rush this but I thought I will show you it all now so you've got an idea of what to expect. I love planting bulbs especially as we go into winter when there's not too much going on in the garden, it gives you something to look forward to in spring. So most of these I've ordered from the wholesalers just because it's cheaper. Hi duckies! Hello! Most of these I've ordered at the wholesalers just because it's much cheaper than buying them in the shops and I've noticed over the last couple of years the price of tulip bulbs has gone up so much so we've done really well getting these from the wholesalers, it's just much more affordable. So I'll show you what we've got. Quite a lot of tulips, not as many as last year because I tend to plant ones that perennialize so we plant less and less of them each year, it's just less wasteful. These were actually a gift so I've got 150 bulbs and these are Tulipa van Eyck and Tulipa orange lion. These were a gift from a friend, she got them from Lidl or Aldi I think and they were really good value, I think they were about six pounds a bag, less than 20 pounds for 150 tulips, I think that's really good. So we've got three of these, one of them's still at her house but there's the first two. We've got some daffodils, these were a gift from our neighbour because we looked after their chickens. These are called Hughtown and they're from the Isles of Scilly. I think I'll put these ones near the house so I can see them more frequently. I've got 200 camassia bulbs and these ones are going in the orchard and it should be something that comes back every year as well. I've always wanted to grow this since I've been gardening so I'm really excited to finally get some in the ground, never grown camassia before. This one is called Esculenta Cuamache, again please feel free to correct me on the pronunciation, but we've got 200 of those so I think that will be a good amount for the orchard and that should be something that comes back every year. We've got a small amount of crocuses, 25 bulbs of Cream Beauty, this is a new one to me, this was another gift. I haven't decided where I'm going to put them but I'll probably put them in a clump somewhere so that it looks more of a wow factor. There is another sort of crocus that I'm really looking forward to growing if I can get my hands on some bulbs and it's a new orange variety and I've never seen an orange one before. I think it looks really cool so I'd like to get some of that if I can. We have woodland anemones, so these ones are called, oh little spider, these ones are called Blander White Splendor. These are going under this oak tree because what I'm finding in this area is there's really really lovely leaf mulch, it's quite shady, it's a deciduous tree so there's sun here in the spring and then shade here in the summer, so it's a really good place to grow woodland type plants. I will be adding things like bluebells and woodland anemones to hopefully give us more of an impact in spring because it is an area that I haven't done much in so far. So how many woodland anemones do we have? 125. Again that's something I've never grown so I'm really looking forward to that and another thing I've done in this area, I'll link to my previous video where you can see how the garden looks in spring with what I've planted so far, but I have planted snowdrops all over the grass here. They didn't flower in their first year so I'm really hoping that this spring we can see them flower and that will be a really nice reward for getting through the winter months. And I assume those will flower before the crocuses so again it adds another layer of interest to the garden in those early months. Fritillaries, we've got a hundred, it's just mixed fritillary so I think these are just a mix of dark purple and light purple and white. There's a hundred of these and I'm going to be adding them to this area here and I grow this area as like a wildflower meadow in the spring, we do no momey and then we cut it back in June-July kind of time so these should add some food for the pollinators and some really pretty dainty flowers as the grass starts to get a bit a bit longer but after things like snowdrops and crocuses have gone over. So you might notice a lot of these things are about extending the season both for our own benefit and also for the pollinators. We're working to build up a constant supply of things in the garden for pollinators. We have Narcissus Sweetlove. So Narcissus Sweetlove, I'm going to be planting this in a border close to the house which I will show you and I've chosen these because I initially tried to grow tulips in that border but it was a little bit damp. Tulips like to have a really really dry summer so I'm hoping maybe I can get away with planting some daffodils there, we'll see but it's something that I can see when I look out the window from our kitchen or bathroom so it'll be something that I see first thing on when I wake up so I would love for that to look pretty in the spring months and so far it doesn't so that should be an improvement there. Again that's a variety I haven't grown before. Now we're getting into Ice Follies. So Ice Follies is a variety of Narcissus that I've grown before so I grow these in the orchard and they are something that flowers in the earlier months of the year. They're a really nice soft creamy white colour with a yellow centre and we have possibly a couple of hundred of these so there's 25 in a bag but there's a few bags in here so I'm just going to build up the stock of these in the orchard because they are a flower that I really love but something I did learn last year is that most of the varieties of daffodil that we grow are useless to pollinators because we've bred them for their looks rather than their suitability for pollinators so I have also got some of our native daffodils to add to the orchard as well just so that we do have something for pollinators. It's really windy today so let's get all of those Ice Folly bags out might be some more in here somewhere okay we're almost at tulips. Next we have this is our native variety of daffodil so this is a Pseudo Narcissus and you can see the bulbs are really tiny compared to the more modern varieties of daffodil so we have 50 I think 150 of those so those again are something that I'm going to add to the orchard and I'm really excited to grow these and I'm going to be interested in seeing how the bees enjoy them in those early months of the year as well and I should say at this point thank you so much to everyone who's joined us on Patreon because this has allowed us to order the bulbs for this season so we're super grateful and thank you so much for your support and if you'd like to join the link will be in the description on this video. We then have a lot of crocuses um these are Pickwick bulbs so these are for my crocus lawn which I've made a couple of videos on but I will link to the video where I show you how to grow a crocus lawn and then you can see some footage of what it looks like and these flower around February March kind of time so a really nice colourful reward for really early in the year. These we have a hundred and they are massive bulbs compared to some of the other ones I've ordered they're about nine centimetres uh similar to a small tulip bulb actually um amazing size so those should give us really good flowers in the first year I'll get those in the ground soon and now we're on to tulips which is my favourite part we have Ivory Floradale so this tulip is a pale tulip as you've guessed by the name uh and I'm going to be adding these to the borders that are behind me because as you may have seen in my earlier videos the perennial tulips that we have in there were the wrong colour when I first planted them they were supposed to be soft pink and they turned out to be hot red it's not a colour that I like but I can't bring myself to get rid of them yet it just feels very wasteful because I put hundreds in there so I'm going to try and mix it with some paler colours so I've got this Ivory Floradale tulip I think I've got a hundred of those um yeah there's another bag of Ivory Floradale it looks like there's 150 and then we've got last but not least Design Impression tulip and this is one that I've grown before I have about eight bulbs in this border and I fell in love with it it's amazing tulip and I found that it comes back every year and it's about the same size as it was initially I know people say that tulips can get smaller when you use them in a perennial way but this one I found doesn't so we've got a hundred of those again to mix into these borders to kind of dilute the colours a bit um so I'm really hoping that that works and it doesn't look too um hot pink we've got a mystery tulip bulb don't know another bag of Design Impression so we only have 250 no that's wrong 400 tulip bulbs this year which is actually um the lowest amount I've ever planted but we have a really good stock of them in the garden already so I don't think we really need to be planting more than that um it is quite a big space so I'm wondering whether these will get lost amongst the space I'm used to planting um about 2 000 bulbs but this will see me through the winter um I will just come out here whenever I've got a spare evening or a couple of hours uh and it helps me unwind and get through those months that I don't really find the easiest um so I'm really looking forward to planting these and I absolutely can't wait to show you how the garden looks in spring make sure you give us a subscribe if you'd like to see and join us on this journey so I guess it's time to get planting a note on tulips if you have squirrels in your garden you might find that the squirrels will eat the tulip bulbs if they can dig them out and find them we don't struggle with this too much and I think it's because we have this oak tree and when the acorns fall from the oak tree you can see the squirrels just hoarding them and I think they've got more than enough food so we don't struggle too much with them digging up the tulip bulbs but when we do we tend to find that they just get moved so sometimes we find tulips popping up in random places around the garden I assume a squirrel has taken it and then placed it somewhere or dropped it somewhere and then it's flowered so that happens occasionally but we don't lose an awful lot one year we saw them scurrying around one of the tulip beds and we just sprinkled some chili powder and that was enough to deter them but otherwise you can plant them really really deeply so that the squirrels can't dig them or cover them with chicken mesh it's up to you but just be wary that that's something you might find if you're going to spend this much money on tulips and you'd be absolutely heartbroken if they all get eaten by squirrels with the crocuses we've never found that to be a problem I don't think the squirrels are really interested in the varieties that we grow especially the new larger varieties they just don't take an interest at all same with the daffodils it's never been a problem it's just the tulips for us and another note is if you want your tulips to come back every year there are a few things you can do to help this so number one is plant them as deep as you can and this will prevent the bulbs from splitting so when they reproduce they generally split form smaller bulbules and then these are too small to flower in subsequent years so if you plant them deep enough if you can go as far as like 20 centimeters that would be amazing they have less of a chance of splitting and that one bulb will continue to flower every year and there's less of a chance that the squirrels will eat them and then there are varieties you can buy that are more likely to be perennial so the darwin hybrids are really good species species tulips are really reliable they're probably your best shout but they are a little bit smaller veridiflora tulips are another good variety that will come back every year so these tend to be the ones that we gravitate towards but having said that I have found even some of the double petaled peony tulips come back every year so there are these rules on what to do to get them to return every year sometimes if you break them it just works so I would say it's worth a little bit of trial and error plant things deep and leave it in the ground and you might find it comes back they do like to be baked in the summer so if you have damp soil that will again mean the bulbs might rot and they won't return so plant them somewhere where they're going to be nice and dry in the summer that will give you another chance at them returning but we've had tulips in the ground for three years that come back every single year without a problem and the only time they don't is when I accidentally dig them up with a spade so that's why we top them up and then the last thing to do to make sure your tulips come back every year is make sure you've deadheaded them after flowering and this just makes sure they don't waste their energy making seeds instead the energy goes into feeding the bulbs you can also give them a bit of food with maybe a seaweed fertilizer or whatever fertilizer you tend to use around the garden and do this after you've cut the tops off the flowers and then you're feeding the leaves and that will help the plant photosynthesize and return energy to that bulb and keep it nice and big and healthy for next year but we do find that it's really easy to get the tulips to come back every year and it's definitely worth it it's super wasteful if you're planting them as an annual when you could be treating them as a perennial so that is our approach to doing it in a kind of less wasteful way but I think that's more or less an introduction to our bulb planting so we're really looking forward to planting these over the coming months thanks so much for watching and if you want to see our garden develop over the years make sure you give us a subscribe