You can (and should) plant bulbs in the winter

Every year around this time, people in my online gardening groups discuss whether it’s a good time to plant tulips. And while planting bulbs in the middle of winter may seem like bizarre behavior, there’s a reason to think about it: gardeners love an off-season bulb sale, and if the ground is soft enough, winter is actually a great time, to plant flower bulbs.

The onions come in sets, so you will receive them in bags of each variety.
Photo credit: Amanda Blum

The rain makes the ground soft

It’s very simple: until the ground freezes in winter, it is ideal to plant in it. (I realize that it may already be too late for some parts of the country, particularly areas with temperatures below freezing.) The ground is soft from the rain; All plants are dormant, so planting is less traumatic. And throwing bulbs in the ground is one way to satisfy your winter gardening habits. Plus, you’re probably bombarded daily with emails announcing unimaginably high sales at bulb stores. Remember that bulbs don’t survive well in the ground all year round, which is why homes are desperately trying to empty their supplies before spring.

Think about all the fall bulbs

But it’s not just tulips. Think of ranunculus, which looks like little poppies; Liatris, a tall, spiky flower; Alliums, which shoot up a single shoot, with a huge ball at the end, sometimes as much as twelve inches wide; Crocus, the first sign of spring; Poppy, iris, peony and more. They arrive looking like garlic bulbs, and they also grow the same way. Planted underground in the fall and winter, they receive much-needed cold weather and shoot up in the spring. They arrive in a very specific order: first the crocuses, then tulips, ranunculus, irises and peonies, followed by alliums and finally, in midsummer, liatris. They also come in different shapes: bulbs and bulbs that look like tiny spiders. Peonies and poppies occur as bare roots and irises as tubers. Each one is planted slightly differently.

Places to get great end-of-season bulb deals:

How to plant flower bulbs in winter

As soon as the box with your purchases arrives, you should open the box and let it open to air, but not in the sun. You want to plant as close to the arrival point as possible at this point. Some of the bulbs may have some mold. If it’s just a little, that’s fine, but expect a few bulbs to have wilted (they’ll be dried out and papery).

To plant bulbs, you need a hole, and this hole should be three times deeper than the size of the bulb. The bigger the bulb, the deeper the hole. Large alliums require deeper holes than very small crocuses.

You will need a bulb planter

Digging these holes is best accomplished with specialized equipment, and you have a few options. If you don’t mind getting close to the space you want to plant in, you can use one Onion plantera hand tool. This is ideal so you can see what else is in the area. There are also standing versionswhich are slightly less accurate because you are further away and may miss something in the room. But standing planters have the advantage of being easier on your back and allowing you more leverage on your body. The final option that I often see recommended is one Snail, that attaches to your drill press, but I don’t recommend it for this job. Augers are great for digging deep holes, but they are the least precise tools and are most likely to disturb nearby plants. Bulb planters provide neat holes for you to drop the bulb into. Snails tend to throw a lot of dirt around and most of the time they loosen the soil making it easier to burrow.

When arranging, think about color and bloom time

I laid out the bags in order so I could determine the spacing and then lay out the individual bulbs.
Photo credit: Amanda Blum

Regardless of the tool, the next step is to decide where to put the bulbs. I select the bulbs carefully and choose the colors and flowering times carefully so that I can create vibrant waves of color in my garden. Once the bulbs arrive, I often make a chart of the order in which the bulbs should be planted so I can refer back to it in the garden.

I unload all the bags with the flower bulbs and place them one by one roughly in the place where they will fit. This allows me to determine the distances and make adjustments. Next, I open the bags and start arranging the individual bulbs in sections. I prefer a “natural” look, so I just throw the bulbs on the ground and plant them wherever they land.

How to use your bulb planter

A hole made from a bulb planter, with a bulb in it.
Photo credit: Amanda Blum

Take your bulb planter and start by pressing it into the ground and turning it left and right at the same time. The planter has teeth that cut through anything in the ground or above it – grass, chips, etc. Once the planter is firmly anchored in the ground, it digs deeper into the soil by moving back and forth as you need. This works for the stand or handheld version. Remove the planter and you have a perfect hole for your flower bulb. Insert the bulb, turn the planter over, tap it on the ground to loosen the dirt plug, replace it and continue.

There’s a lot written about how bulbs should be placed in the hole with the tip facing up, because that’s how they grow. In recent years this has been debunked by flower farmers – plants know what they are doing and will find their way underground.

If you know the soil is poor, you can think about adding it Onion food to the hole when you insert the light bulb; Once the bulbs are planted, you should provide them with fertilizer annually.

How to Plant Tubers, Tubers and Bare Roots

When planting tubers, you should do little more than scrape up the ground and pick up an inch or two of soil. Tubers like to have their roots in the ground, but sit exposed on the surface. Tubers also spread easily. Therefore, when planting, make sure you have enough space to grow.

Bare roots should be planted below the soil surface. Find the top of the plant so that all the roots hang down. Fan the plant out on the ground and now dig a hole of approximately the same size and at least as deep. Make a mound in the center of this hole and place the plant on the mound so that the roots spread around the mound and the top of the plant is just below the soil surface. Now fill the hole back up.

Tubers should be soaked overnight before planting. They are strange looking little roots, but the little arms of the “spider” all point in one direction. This is the floor. After soaking, the roots will become fuller and you can now plant them. You want the soil you plant in to be loose. You can push the tuber in just enough so that the top of the tuber is still visible but the rest of the plant is underground. They’re pretty small, so this isn’t difficult.