My top tips for tulips: Choose big bulbs, plant them deep and improve drainage

We have reached the tulip-planting season. In theory all other bulbs should be planted by now, leaving tulips till last. In practice, few of us achieve or even aim for that. 

I still have some daffodils and crocuses to plant and although it is something I should definitely hurry up and get on with, any spring bulb can be planted in November.

However, there are good reasons for not planting tulips before November. This is because tulips – unlike other bulbs – are prone to tulip fire. 

British gardening expert Monty Don (pictured) shares his tips for looking after tulips

Tulip fire is caused by a fungus and initially manifests itself with small pin-prick sized holes and lumps on the petals and grey mould on the leaves. 

The holes are caused by spores being exposed to sunlight and the leaf mould is a sign of the rot that can reduce a tulip to a molten-looking lump. 

By November, the soil will be colder and therefore any spores in the soil are much less likely to spread.

I plant tulips to be grown in containers first because the potting compost will not have any of the contaminating fungal spores. 

ASK MONTY 

Q Fungi, mostly toadstools, has invaded my lawn that’s shaded by lime trees. How can I stop this?

Michael Horgan, Wirral

A Toadstools are the fruiting bodies of fungus that is almost certainly feeding off the decomposing roots of the limes and of trees that preceded them. There is nothing you can do about this short of digging up every scrap of root. They won’t harm your lawn, and as the roots rot down the fungus will go.

Q I planted a walnut tree 15 years ago but it has never yielded any nuts. Can you explain why?

Mike Turner, Northants

A Some walnuts are self-fertile, but others need a pollinator to produce nuts. Also, trees grown from seed are slow to become productive, so it’s not unusual for it to take 20-30 years to start producing nuts – and another tree to act as a pollinator would improve that situation greatly.

Q I’ve taken strawberry plants from runners – do I plant them now?

Bernard Evans, Gloucestershire

APlanting them now will give them longer to develop a good root system and increase the chances of fruit production next summer, but don’t expect much until their second and third year.

I am happy to delay those going into the borders or long grass until December. 

Even early January is not a disaster.

When buying tulips, always go for size. The bigger the bulb (although some varieties have appreciably bigger bulbs than others), the better it will flower. 

Depth of planting is also key to strong growth – generally, and especially for permanent planting, deep is good and very deep is best. 

The exception is if you are planting bulbs to be lifted after flowering, in which case it can be beneficial to bury them just a couple of inches below the surface where they can root into better soil.

Unlike daffodils, tulip bulbs do not last after flowering. 

Instead they form new bulbs as well as a number of much smaller bulbils. 

The bulbs you buy are carefully bred, selected and grown for maximum size. Some varieties repeat well (like ‘Ballerina’, ‘Aladdin’, ‘Apricot Emperor’ and ‘Negrita’) but many do not, and over the years flowering will become increasingly erratic, with lots of rather small flowers. 

So if you want maximum display it’s best to treat tulips as annuals and replace the bulbs every year. 

But that can become an expensive habit – and I think there is a compromise.

We order new bulbs each year for the containers and put these in pride of place. 

Then after they have finished flowering we lift them, foliage and all, carefully drying them in a sunny place until the foliage has completely withered and fed maximum goodness into next year’s bulbs. 

Any that are conker-sized or bigger are stored to be planted out into the borders. 

This gives us wonderful displays in pots, and a constant topping-up of tulips in the borders.

Whether you are planting into pots or the soil, good drainage is vital for tulip happiness. 

That can be hard to provide on our heavy clay with the result that many flower much less well after the first year than they would do if planted on a lighter soil, but in a pot I can provide exactly the growing medium they crave. 

I mix a coir-based compost with an equal measure of horticultural grit and add some sieved garden compost and leafmould for good measure.   

MONTY’S PLANT OF THE WEEK: SALVIA ELEGANS

Monty Don grows salvia elegans (pictured) in pots inside to protect them from the harsh conditions of winter

Monty Don grows salvia elegans (pictured) in pots inside to protect them from the harsh conditions of winter

The pineapple sage, S. elegans, flowers this month – though it isn’t hardy so its full glory can be impaired by frost. However, I grow it in pots that spend summer tucked away in a sunny part of the garden. 

Then, after I bring it into the greenhouse in October, the buds form, giving a blaze of cherry-red blooms until Christmas. It needs summer heat to produce flower buds so give it a warm spot to grow in – preferably near a path so its leaves will release their pineapple fragrance as you brush past them. 

It propagates very easily from cuttings taken in autumn or spring.

THIS WEEK’S JOB: HARDWOOD CUTTINGS

Take straight, 15-30cm lengths of this year’s growth. Strip any leaves and lightly scrape the bark on the lower part. 

Place 4-5 cuttings in a deep pot filled with very gritty compost or outside in a narrow trench with lots of sand. Leave a third of the wood above the soil. 

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