Starting summer bulbs in pots?

[tumbling tom]

Just been into poundland today and seen that they have a huge range of summer bulbs for sale, which has tempted me into growing some for the first year this year.

Now due to the fact I have loads of spring bulbs in the ground, which I dont know where they are and also cos I have a bit of re-jigging to do in the garden I dont want to put the bulbs down till about june.

So what I wanted to ask is would I be able to start the bulbs off in individual and then ransfer them to beds in june time?

Also any particular size? Was gonna buy a mixture of bulbs from largeish oriental lilly bulbs to other small ones which I can't remmber what theyre called, lol.

Thanks in advance guys.

[Dottie]

You can certainly plant them up in pots and transfer when ready, as many folk only grow in pots, full stop.

I bought various plants and bulbs from them too, and will be potting up some if the ground becomes frozen again and/or spring bulbs are popping up. I came back from the allotment today with 9 morrisons bucket, to plant up 3 mixed Dahlia (I want to see what colour each is, before deciding where it will live garden or lottie), 3 Red Poppies and 3 Sea Holly.

I also have 50 XL iris bulbs, but they may go straight in the ground or I'll pop them into small pots with 5 bulbs in each, ready to plant out later on.

I was going to start 3 climbing roses off in pots, but I'm hoping to plant them direct into the garden over the next week or so. Although there is an orange bush rose, that I will need to start off in a big pot, as the yellow/orange garden section is full of plants and bulbs. But if the orange dahlia that I left in the ground, rots due to the cold weather, then I will replace it with the new rose.

[tumbling tom]

Glad to hear that. Yea they sure have some bargains. Was wondering what the smallest pot I could get away with would be for something like an asiatic lilly. Not gonna keep them in till they flower obviously, just to start them off before they go in the ground, just wanted to do them individually.

[kentvegplot]

Bulbs in pots should be absolutely fine.

I have just finished potting up tulips and alliums that didn't make it into the ground before the snow came. I've used 150l of potting compost, dividing them into 3's and 5's mainly. So the greenhouse now has about 30 pots of bulbs! I'm hoping they'll grow OK - all the books tell you how deep they need to be, but not how much soil they need underneath them!

Good luck with yours - let us know how they turn out.

[tumbling tom]

Ok had a good look in poundland and the prices are too good to resist.

Want to start the the bulbs in cells, so I can plant them up "in the green".

Gonna do mixture of stuff including lillies, but need to draw on your advice. Was gonna put each bulb into one of these cells, they are 2" in diameter and 2" deep. Will they be ok you reckon?



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[tumbling tom]

Just to update this, as you can see last years experiment was a success!!