Last week I made reference to this being bulb-planting time again.
Adverts in the press and a visit to any garden centre recently, displaying stacks of bulbs makes the point.
Although we still force one or two pots each winter, most of our planting at home is outside and I particularly like crocus and narcissi.
Over the years we have amassed a fair collection, the oldest of which are getting in need of lifting and splitting but NOT at this time of year.
That is a job for early summer after flowering, when the leaves have died down.
I won’t be planting this year’s bulbs in my wee bit of lawn.
I like to see the patches of colour between deciduous shrubs and under trees.
When planting outside, remember that old bit of advice, plant the bulbs well down, the depth of the hole should be equal to three or four times the height of the bulb and if you can, put a wee layer of sharp sand in the bottom of the hole to rest the base of the bulbs on.
In fertile soil, there is little need for feeding at this stage, especially if you are an attentive gardener.
“What do I mean by that?” I hear you ask.
I mean that you will have remembered me saying that bulbs should be fed just as flowering time passes, either by adding slow-release fertiliser or by watering with a liquid feed.
That said, at this time you might sprinkle on a bit of bone meal now as you plant, mixing it in as you fill up the holes.
Bone meal is a slow acting fertiliser which won’t start to become useful until the soil begins to warm up in the spring.
I suppose it is a matter of personal choice but I don’t like to see bulbs planted in serried rows when they are meant to look as if they have appeared naturally – my choice is for them to be in dustbin lid-sized clumps.
Time now to reveal that this is my last contribution to Your Home.
Retirement from the weekly challenge comes at a time when old age is beginning to be a little more difficult to cope with, I even have to have help with some jobs in the garden nowadays.
Like everyone else, I just have to face up to the fact that I’m getting old.
Diary
Gracious me, my gardening career began in 1954.
Having successfully applied for a place at the Agricultural College, I was informed that first, I had to do a year’s practical during which time I would keep a diary to be submitted before starting the course.
That year was spent on a commercial nursery in Kilmarnock, my home town.
It was tough but the experience proved to be invaluable. The attached picture shows a typical style of diary entry.
The college course lasted two years, partly divided between Glasgow and at the college estate Auchincruive, located on the outskirts of Ayr.
In the last weeks of that course, the superintendent of the Garden Unit – John Warwick, asked me if I had a job to go to when the course ended.
I hadn’t given it a thought so he asked me to join his staff.
Foundation
I spent three more years there, working round the various departments and that laid a foundation to stand me in good stead.
Now married and studying for the RHS National Diploma in Horticulture, I was offered a deputy head gardener’s post at the Reading University Teaching Unit.
I jumped at it because of the opportunity to study horticulture in Berkshire, not a million miles from the RHS garden at Wisley.
NDH achieved, the next move was to Shropshire to work in the Further Education Unit as a tutor and lecturer based in Shrewsbury.
We provided advice and back-up for school playing field maintenance and gardening for the pupils which was extremely popular (I’m talking early 1960s). Six years there and ready for the next move.
Before moving on, a little PS, I did my first ever judging at a flower show during my time there, paired up with guess who? It was Percy Thrower – a super guy.
Next move was to East Midlands, based in Leicester, to join the Min of Ag Advisory Service – advising commercial growers.
By this time our two children were of school age and in a stroke of enlightenment one evening, I suggested to my wife Billie that I would rather they were educated in Scotland – nuff said, in 1972 I joined the staff of the North College at 581 King Street and Craibstone.
In due time, however I left NOSCA to set up the Waste Energy project at Glengarioch Distillery, and concurrently joined the Beechgrove Garden team but ye ken aw aboot that.
Suffice to say that the advice given in my articles over the last 20 odd years has been based on a career served in the advisory service for growers who earned a living in horticulture hence the constant reminders to ‘do your research’ before buying new plants or trying a new technique.
Mistakes just cost money.
Our biggest challenge in the coming years will be Climate Change with Mother Nature playing all sorts of tricks.
I wish you all the best.
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