It has come to that time of year here at Harlow Carr when the garden looks lovely with autumn colour and the workload picks up the pace a little, lots of leaf clearing, bed clearing, container emptying and general tidying up. Last week the bulb delivery arrived, so much of the preparations this week are leading to the frenzy of bulb planting to follow over the next few weeks. Only just under 82,000 this year so shouldn’t take too long to plant!
Many different species of bulbs were ordered which should bring much interest over several months next year. This is for me a very interesting time of year, and a chance to be creative with the bulb schemes.
My favourite task at this time is planting up the many containers that we have on display with bulbs for the spring, the only problem now is that I have to wait so long to see the fruits of my labours. When planting up the containers with bulbs I really like to cram them in, several members of the public passed comment on how many bulbs I was using, my answer to them was - so long as your container is a decent size with a substantial body of compost, you water and feed appropriately, then why not pack them in? After all it is a tempory display.
The bulbs I have used in the photos are both varieties of Hyacinths, the lighter coloured one is City of Haarlem which has lemon yellow flowers and the darker coloured bulb is Woodstock which is a deep purple/maroon colour (obviously the picture was taken before the top layer of compost was added.) These containers are in the 1950s Festival of Britain garden, in Gardens through Time, so I purposely chose these bold colours in bold patterns so they would really stand out against the hard strong lines and materials typically used in this period.
So please come along in April to see my pots in their full glory!
Russell Watkins.
Gardens East.
Harlow Carr.