It’s that time of year where the flowers are starting to wind down and you’re even thinking of digging up your non-hardy perennials (dahlias, etc) for indoor winter storage. Why not kill two birds with one stone? Now is the time to buy your bulbs!
Choosing bulbs
Tulips, hyacinths, narcissus, grape hyacinths, crocus are the main spring flowers that we plant in the fall. Much has been said about planting in layers (i.e. big bulbs like tulips 6-8″ down, grape hyacinths 2-4″ down, etc) to give constant colour to the space you’ve devoted to bulbs, but nothing, absolutely nothing comes close to a thick, healthy flush of pure tulips in May. Price: I’ve said it about pavers, perennials and mulch and now I’ll say it about tulip bulbs – you get what you pay for. 
Size: The other maxim to consider is that size does matter. Big expensive tulip bulbs = big showy tulips. Colour: There are no rules, but I’m a huge fan of tall pale pink with mid-height ivory tulips; a flash of hot pink/fuschia in that mix is mucho sharp.
Planning to plant
There are three ways to plant tulips: in small bunches throughout a bed, as a border for a bed, or filling an entire bed (if you’re rich). Between Montreal and Ottawa, where I’ve done all of my landscaping, there is ONE landscaping company that consistently mass plants high-quality tulips that succeed and flourish every year – Strathmore Landscape of Montreal (the NCC in Ottawa is similar, but Strathmore’s commercial plantings are more consistent and bulbs are higher quality than those you’ll see at Ottawa’s NCC Tulip Festival!). It goes without saying, then, that the way they do things is probably a good model to follow.
Think about what you want from the sky-down and sketch it out like a blueprint. It doesn’t have to be complicated – in fact, if you’re planting a few clumps of 7-12 you don’t need a plan. Roughly estimate the square footage you’d like to fill and figure out the density you need to plant. For example, an area 1.5 x 20 = 30 sq. ft — if you have 270 bulbs, that’s 9 per sq. ft, which is 4 inch spacing. Make sense? Most tulip packages say stuff about 12 inch spacing, blah blah blah. If you fertilize it, they will grow touching eachother. ’Nuff said.
Don’t be afraid to mix colors or even heights – the general rule about planting higher things behind shorter things doesn’t necessarily apply to tulips. The only thing about mixing is to be sure you’re thoughtful about it. Pink and red don’t often go together. I have tried putting 100 reds and 100 yellows in a box and shaking them up, but you inevitably end up with weird clumps of colour. Pick a geometric pattern or mix them at an evenly spaced ratio of 1:1 or 2:1; literally place them in the ground one at a time (yellow, red, yellow, red….) You`ll thank yourself in May.
The important part – planting!
Plant your bulbs about 3-4 times deeper than the height of the bulb in Zone 4-6 and about 4-5 times deeper in Zone 2-3. A bulb that is 2″ high should be planted 6-10″ deep, depending on the climate. Dig a hole with a flat bottom (consistent depth = consistent tulip height and date of growth) – for a clump dig an 18″ diameter hole, for a border dig a trench slightly wider than the desired tulip border, and for a mass planting dig the area out 1/2 or 1/3 at a time (i.e. dig a flat bottomed area out, piling your soil up on the other half, fill it back in and repeat for the other side). Apply a liberal amount of bone meal on the bottom of the planting area, cuz tulips love their calcium (you can’t really burn the bulbs because bone meal is a weak fertilizer). Place your bulbs in a grid pattern on the bottom of your hole (staggered but parallel rows), pointy end up. When backfilling the hole, carefully sprinkle the soil over the bulbs until there is enough weight on them to hold them down – if you knock a bunch of bulbs over, say goodbye to your nice neat grid and evenly spaced planting. Once weighted down, backfill all the way and only lightly tamp the soil back down.
Over the winter…
If your bed is near a road or pathway (exposed to salt and traffic) or in a raised area, it will likely benefit from some winter protection. A six inch layer of straw, held down by geotextile or burlap tacked down by u-nails or pegs will do the trick. Just be sure to remove this protection as soon as the ground thaws enough to do so – otherwise you will forestall the growth of the plants.
