Planting & Growing Flower Bulbs - How to plant bulbs in containers

Hi I'm Jessica Smith with Blands Nursery in West Jordan Utah, and today we're talking all about planting bulbs. Right now we're going to discuss how to plant and force bulbs in containers. Now your fall bulbs you want to pick up first part of September, so when they begin to arrive at your local nurseries. And what you want to do is you want to go with a nice big bulb to begin with. Little bulbs and that won't have a really nice flower, so you want to make sure that you get a nice big, firm bulb. Make sure it's not soft, it's not shriveled, it doesn't have any kind of bruising on it. That's not a good bulb. Now with your pots what you want is you want to make sure you have a drainage hole at the bottom. So if there's not a drainage hole, poke one through. And any type of a pot will work for you. And a nice combination of flowers, that way it gives you some variety and that. Nice potting soil to begin with in the pot, don't use your garden soil. Always get you a nice quality potting soil. If you'd like you can go ahead and add a little bit of bone meal down at the bottom and kind of mix it in with the soil. And you'll want to do your, you can actually layer bulbs. So you have all different types in it. These pots aren't really large, so I would want to do a whole lot of layering with it. But you want your pointed side up, always go with your pointed side up. And you'll just put them down in there. These are some daffodils, and they'll just come up with the stalks on it. And I'll want to do, I think I'll just mix a few little tulips in with them. Again that flat side out on your tulip. Now this type of a tulip and this type of a daffodil are real similar to their heights and their going to actually bloom at the same time. And then what you're going to do is just go ahead and cover with some more soil. Again just leaving a little bit of the rim showing so that your water, you can water from that point. You're going to water at this point, water them down in. And this one right here, I'm going to put these three pots together in the spring. And we're going with the hyacinth bulb, again pointed end up, you can see that your roots are going to come out from this end. And just nestle them down in, and again and cover them up. Now this little guy right here, you could put one little bulb in it, but and these are all really early blooming. Now crocus tend to come up a little bit early, you could also use some little wood hyacinths in that. Right here, this is the bottom, this is where your root is going to come out from, and right here is your little pointed end. That one's going to go up. Now to tell if a crocus bulb is good, just kind of dig into it. It's going to look like a potato in that, you'll know that it's a good bulb. You'll also be able to tell is it hard, is there any mold or mildew. Basically the same with all your bulbs. Now what you want to do is label them right here, that way you're going to know what it is that you've planted for next spring, in there. This needs to go into your cold dormant area, spare refrigerator, root cellar, any place that's at least forty-five to fifty-five degrees, or go ahead and mulch them until next spring. And then next spring they'll begin to pop up, you're going to bring them out of their cold storage, into a shady location until those tops that are popping up, turn to from green to yellow. And then you can go ahead and put them out. Also something else you can do with your spring time bulbs is add a little bit of pansies maybe next spring, it's just going to help add some color. Don't do this though until the spring time, and just pick your pansies up then.