Fall Plantings for Spring Color

Disclosure: For this review I received, from Longfield Gardens, bulbs of the lovely flowers you see above and I can’t wait to have them growing in my garden this coming spring! All opinions expressed are my own.

This year I came to a gardening realization – I expect too much of my plants, especially the pretty ones. We have plenty of room to grow just about anything we want yet I feel like each planting should earn its keep by producing either a vegetable or an herb. I know, it is completely irrational and this year, when we actually had some herbs take off with beautiful blooms, I realized simple flowers were what we’d been missing.

Bulbs are one of the simplest ways to add a show of color with virtually no effort and I was excited to have the opportunity to try some out. Longfield Gardens has an amazing collection of both fall and spring planted bulbs along with every bulb in between. I received the Perfect Together set with Mystic Van Eijk Tulips and Muscari Armenicacum. Included in the package was a Fall Planting Guide as well as a flyer specifically for the set with suggested planting patterns and aftercare tips.

When I visited the Longfield site I was impressed with the guidance they offered at every turn. Yes, bulbs are easy to plant but looking at all those blooms I was overwhelmed with what would look best with what, or what could I plant to prolong the blooming as long as possible. All those questions were answered with articles, videos, how-tos and  infographics like this one that was shared on their blog.

I live in Missouri and we still haven’t farmed all the rocks out of our yard so to insure that we’d get to enjoy the tulips and muscari I decided to go with container plantings, but bulbs are no different than any other plant. They can be planted anywhere as long as you keep their particular preferences in consideration.

While I planted two of the larger tubs I let the kids plant one of their own. It was a great exercise in reading instructions to make sure we got them planted deep enough and they finally realized why the garden shovel has inch markings!

It’s nice to know when the ice and snow thaw next spring I’ll be one step ahead on creating a truly colorful garden! There’s still time left to get your own bulbs planted for next spring, visit Longfield Gardens and place your order! You can also find them on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube.