Hidden surprises

My chiropractor bills are soaring. I have spent the best part of the last 10 days planting bulbs in my clients’ gardens. It is the most satisfying job – hiding hundreds of bulbs under the soil and knowing that they will push up in May to produce a picture of utter loveliness. I have been planting on a grand scale – 700 at a time – but this could all be scaled down to a window box.

Plant tulips now (depth of 15cm), to flower next Spring / early Summer. The trick is to bury them under a selection of plants that will look good from now until then (when those bulbs start popping up in May, you won’t want to be fiddling around pulling out dead stuff that looked good in winter and disturbing the tulip’s journey north).

My choice would be ornamental grasses – Stipa tenuissima would fit the bill for size. The joy of grasses is that they look good pretty much year-round – with Stipa, you ‘comb’ it through in February to pull out any dead grass, and that’s pretty much it. I would add colour with some small cyclamen planted in and around the Stipa, and then underplant with Tulip ‘Antricet’ – a distinguished dark red double tulip:

Stipa tenuissima:

Cyclamen:

Tulip 'Antricet':

As soon as the cyclamen have given up (March / April), carefully pull them out and fill in with some forget-me-not seedlings nicked from your mum’s garden…