To Home Page About the project To the Chronicles To Galleries To Bulb and Perennials Directory To Bulb and Perennials Combos Landscapers To Team Biographies About the New York Botanical Garden About the Internaltional Flower Bulb Center

Step-by-Step Guide for Landscapers

The Installation

Planting the Seasonal WalkHere’s how to make a mixed bulb border happen. As with all spring bulb projects, the starting point comes in autumn with the behind-the-scenes prep of the beds and input of goodies that will perform at the first hint of spring. This is one project that you can get in the bag before the spring rush!

The specs: Basically, you can adapt any bed for this project. The border at The New York Botanical Garden is 100 feet long and 10 feet wide, but you can recruit any spare space. Just find an area large or small to look fab before most of the garden gears up and continue impressing nonstop throughout the growing season.


plan

The Steps

  1. Soil prep: Turn the soil (a rototiller comes in handy here if you’ve got a lot of ground to cover, but hand digging or forking is also perfectly acceptable). The NYBG adds well-matured compost to the seasonal walk once a year. The goal is a fertile, loose, easily-planted canvas. Allow the soil to “settle down” before planting.
  2. Lay out your design. The NYBG used a series of stakes and flags to delineate where each swathe of perennials and mixture of bulbs would be installed. They found it useful to assign numbers and letters to each space, keying them with the Master Plan.
  3. Install the tulips. Since the tulips were targeted for dedicated spaces – to be lifted after flowering and replanted with summer blooming bulbs – it’s useful to get them in first. Plant them thickly to create a smash of color.
  4. Install spring blooming accent plants: Oudolf’s plan called for geum (Geum ‘Flames of Passion’) and phlox (Phlox divaricata ‘Clouds of Perfume’) in peanut-shaped masses seasoned irregularly throughout the border to coincide with the early bulb extravaganza.
  5. Install the daffodils. The plan called for a narcissus mixture to be installed in circles punctuated throughout the length of the bed. These can be planted before (and more deeply than) the combinations of mixed specialty bulbs that will be broadcast.
  6. Lay out the perennials. Oudolf’s plan called for irregularly shaped masses of perennials. For drama, plant perennials in masses of 9 – 12 plants in a grouping, installing the plants spaced one foot from center, just as you would plant a perennial border if the bulbs weren’t part of the picture. Perennials can also be paired together for impact.*
  7. Install the bulbs. The bulb mixtures can be installed at the same time as the perennials or shortly afterward. Pre-mix the combinations so they can be broadcast easily. Toss handfuls throughout the surface of the bed (Jacqueline prefers an uneven, random, natural distribution). Then double back and bury the bulbs 3-5 inches deep.
  8. Water lightly if precipitation isn’t in the picture.
  9. Wait for spring!


* Perennial pairings in Piet Oudolf’s plan:
Eryngium bourgatti & Calamintha nepeta
Phlox ‘Blue Paradise’ & Origanum ‘Herrenhausen’
Sesleria autumnalis & Salvia ‘Eveline’
Astilbe ‘Visions in Pink’& Tricyrtis ‘Sinonome’
Cimicifuga ‘Brunette’ & Astrantia ‘Claret’