Has anyone used the ^layering^ method with bulbs in pots?

I meant to add, I may not reply for a while as I'm behind the sheds and painting some sorry unwanted pots ?

Do you mean planting each pot up in layers MerylStreep? As in daffodils bulbs on one layer, then dwarf iris bulbs on the next layer and crocus bulbs near the top and then pansies on the surface? If so, yes, I always do this, so that I have a succession of flowers blooming thoughout Spring. The bulbs grow up through the pansies, or primroses and give a lovely display. Like you, I prefer to grow them in pots so that the scraggly leaves can die back naturally and can be stored away out of sight. and I'm not a Virgo either!

Yes, works so well. I think you should have as many pots as you like.....move them about and easily change the picture in your garden according to seasons. I also remove bulbs sometimes, especially tulips and hyacinths, and put them in string bags hanging from the roof of my garage. It helps deter little creatures from munching them throughout the year.

I’ve done this as well, with varying success. It does depend on the reliability of the bulbs. Despite buying from nurseries as individual bulbs, some of them were clearly not the type on the label.
I now only do two layers and once finished they over summer behind the greenhouse. I had a spectacular pot of anemones last spring, not the usual spring post bulb.

I have four large, deep containers at the front of the house that I plant up using this method. After about 4 or 5 years I replace the soil and re-plant them with new bulbs - this lot came from the RHS online shop as a package for layering: crocuses, muscari, hyacinths and tulips. The top layer of soil is deep enough to plant pansies, heathers, cyclames etc in the autumn before the bulbs come through and bedding plants after the greenery dies back.

At the back of the house, which is mainly paved with stone, I have a collection of smaller pots and troughs, mostly terracotta and stone. I plant these with just one variety of bulbs each and move them round so that I can see them from the house when they are in flower and at their best. In the summer I fill them with bedding plants.

The ones at the back will need replanting this year as a family of squirrels moved in last winter and they dug up some of the bulbs and ate them! I also have an odd assortment of bedding plants this year as the nursery where I get my plants was closed during lockdown and when it re-opened I just bought what was available!

Thank you for the replies. Layered it is then. It will save work moving them all around.
Chewbacca
It's good to know I'm not the only one ?

I’ve been using the layering method for a few years. Last year I tried tulips, daffodils & crocus. The tulips were a total non-event. I suspect it’s because the tulips were planted too early, and they just failed.

This year I’ll do tulips in their own pots and have daffs /crocus/muscari in other ones.

As an aside, looking at what’s available in garden centres this autumn, there seems to be some lovely new bulbs around.

SueDonim
That's interesting about the tulips as I'm sitting in the conservatory looking at 3 large terracotta pots and thinking tulips/daffodils/ crocus.
Why do you think the tulips were planted early?
I want to get this right as I've spent quite a bit with Sarah Raven on oriental tulips.

Last year I tried tulips, daffodils

Our local horticultural society recommended avoiding planting any narcissi bulbs with any tulip bulbs because "they don't get on"! I can't remember which one it is that gives off some kind of toxic gasses and therefore poisons the other, but I've always avoided planting them in the same container. We were also told:
September for narcissi bulbs
October for tulips, crocus and, muscari and dwarf iris
November for alliums.

My allium bulbs have just arrived today; 100 bulbs, 4 different varieties for £19.99.

Meryl I’ve read lately that tulips are best planted Nov/Dec and even in January, as they can get a blight or disease of some sort if they’re planted earlier.

Chewbacca I didn’t know that! Poisonous gases! ☠️ I’ll definitely do them separately this year. I have done daffs/tulips successfully before but these were in smaller containers so maybe they each sensed the other was also there.

Your mention of alliums reminds me that I planted loads last year in a small old-fashioned sink and not so much as a leaf came up. I did find a hen’s egg in the sink when I emptied it of the previous year’s soil, though!

I'm looking for Paper White and Thalia bulbs this year. I fancy having several completely white flowering tubs, alternated with Queen of the Night tulips containers. Very monochromatic!

I was so sad when our pound shop closed. I got the best selection of bulbs for the best prices there. I also grew Queen of the night in conjunction with white tulips. Somewhere, I have a leaflet about bulb planting from the Keukenhof gardens near Amsterdam and there was no mention of layering in that.

I heard a gardening person on the radio last week referring to this as ‘bulb lasagne’!

baubles
They do use that term but for some reason it doesn't sound right to me.

Chewbacca
When I first moved in here ( 7 yrs ago) I did a completely white border. Lovely.

I went to Hidcote a couple of years ago MerylStreep and their White Garden was just amazing! I've never managed a whole border but I've done tubs and planters in a themed colour and it does look good, doesn't it!

I have a feeling that you may not like the results of layers of bulbs. You will have the dying foliage of the earlier varieties when the later ones are flowering.

I have over 100 pots including a holding area for out of season plants. They take a lot of watering but I like the flexibility and ability to rearrange them.

Hopefully, I'm understanding you correctly; do you mean various different bulbs on layers in the same pot? If so, fill your boots ( not literally ) ?, it's a brilliant way to showcase the bulbs and put the pots out of sight when the flowers start dying off. When my parents died I unearthed loads of bulbs from their garden before I sold the property, I had no idea which was which, just knew they were spring flowering. I knew a crocus bulb from a daffodil bulb naturally, but there was so many varieties. I planted up lots of pots in the autumn, gave several away to my siblings and daughters and now we all enjoy the very same flowers that my parents loved to see in their own garden! These are ideal to fill an empty space in a border too.

That’s lovely about your parents’ flowers, H1954. What a special way to remember them.

I haven’t found the foliage to be a problem as new bulbs come through. The fresh leaves cover over the old ones.

Chewbacca I have Queen of the Night and another almost-black tulip in a bed. I can’t decide what colours to plant this year in pots. It’s for a north facing area so dark colours don’t really show up in the shadows. Maybe I’ll do all white or perhaps a mix of pink and white.

Sissinghurst Castle also has white flower beds, in fact I think Vita Sackville West might have been the person who introduced colour themed gardening in the UK.

Sarah Raven popularised this, and called it “bulb lasagne”.

www.sarahraven.com/articles/layering-bulbs-how-to-make-a-bulb-lasagne.htm

I can’t see any problem. I have pots that have layers of bulbs, and in the early summer I plant them with bedding plants. Same pot, several seasons.

I have 22 large pots, mostly with perennials and shrubs in, but 2 are empty ready for layering. This year, mini narcissi, big narcissi crocuses alliums.

Some I will plant around the edge of already planted pots.

Go for it MerylStreep, I like the idea too that others have suggested- to move the pots around for best colourful effect.

oh gosh, I just wish I could see photos of all of your gardens

I've been to Kathy Brown's container garden in Bedfordshire twoor three times. She has an amazing range of ideas.

One simple but really effective one was to plant the pot in two halves with early and late bulbs.

When the first half is finished flowering just turn the pot 180 degrees and have a whole new display!

The leaves of the not flowering bulbs make a backdrop.

Hope I've explained that OK.

Are these bulbs compatible with having dogs , I’d love to plant a few in my pots just a bit nervous.