Planting Bulbs in Containers

An act of hope, yes--but how do you do it if you're short on space?

I’m currently at war with the local squirrels, who have only just recently decided to start raiding the garden. I was amazed by the lack of them in the summer, but now I’m dealing with holes in pots and new seedlings dug up every morning. Drew loves squirrels and thinks it’s cute. I don’t. (I do love Bumble from Prospect Park, but he’s too sweet to mess with a potted plant)

I’ve chicken-wired one of the beds where I’ve planted the biennials, and I have the viola seedlings protected in the clear plastic bin/coldframe, but what I’m really nervous about are the bulbs I’ve just planted. This is my very first time growing bulbs in pots. The only time I planted bulbs was in Portland, where I grew tulips, daffodils, and alliums in a flower bed. We had lots of squirrels there, but I don’t remember them digging all that much up.

I never even gave planting bulbs in pots a thought until last spring at a Gowanus Garden pop-up sale, where potted tulips and muscari and daffodils in bloom were the stars of the show. When I grew tulips in the ground they’d sometimes come up short and unimpressive or maybe hidden among others plants, but in small pots the tulips at the sale looked like little jewel boxes, lifted up on tables and surrounded by other potted bulbs. I knew I’d have to give it a try in the fall.

I’ve spent the last month reading the bulb planting sections of every book on container flowers that I own and can get from the library. I figured that these books would be the way to go for the most comprehensive information on planting bulbs in pots, particular for people like me who garden in the city or on balconies with limited space, both inside and out. But I’ve found that even in my favorite gardening books the sections on planting bulbs have been more style than substance.

Not to say that they haven’t been helpful. I haven’t planted all that many bulbs in my life, so I could always use some advice on what to plant, and when. I knew that crocuses (croci?) in a pot were a must. I’ve always loved the look of them, probably because they remind me of jelly beans and Easter. Muscari, too. I’d always grown them in a bed sparsely, but I love how the tiny things look all crowded together in a pot. The gardening books are good at telling you when to plant something and how, and what colors to choose (and that part is not hard!) but will usually skimp on any sort of post-planting instructions. Sometimes I feel like the writer thinks I’m smarter than I am, or assumes that all of us readers went to horticultural school. “Put the pots away somewhere covered,” is about all the post-planting information they’ll give. Or, worse, to put them in a greenhouse that I don’t have. One writer will tell you to water the pots every few weeks, while another will scare you off the watering can for good with stories of rotting bulbs. What to do?

Well, go to Reddit, for one thing. Maybe a British gardening writer with mild winters and plenty of greenhouse space wouldn’t have the best advice for someone in my situation, but someone growing on a balcony in a Zone 7 part of the Northeast probably will. I also found online articles to be the most helpful, and in the end I went with the advice in this Longfield Gardens post. Very practical, no fuss. After planting the bulbs I watered the pots and covered them with chicken wire and also some thorny rose prunings (a Sarah Raven recommendation). If I had an outdoor shed or of course greenhouse of some kind I’d have put the pots there, but as it is I do have a deck storage box that I’m using as a makeshift shed for now. I’ve put all the pots together there, and it’s pretty secure so I don’t think any creatures will be finding their way in. It should keep the rain out, and if we get some extra cold nights I can always throw a blanket over it, maybe? I had to go with terracotta pots, of course, so there’s always the chance of them breaking, but I’m always checking the weather anyway so it shouldn’t be hard to stay vigilant and to run outside with an old comforter, if need be.

If the soil ever looks too dry I can always give the pots another watering, though I don’t want to water them too much. And when the bulbs start to sprout I’ll take the pots out into the sunlight; then I’ll probably be warring with those squirrels again, but that’s a problem for next year, as will be how to store the spent bulbs. I figured that maybe I can put the old bulbs in soil in plastic pots and store them away, maybe in the deck box again. Will they get too hot and rot over the summer, though? I don’t know!

So what did I end up planting? Two kinds of daffodils (‘Minnow’ and ‘Bridal Crown,’ two tulips (‘Creme Upstar’ and ‘Stunning Apricot,’) some mixed crocuses, ‘Baby’s Breath’ muscari, and some snowdrops. I had no color theme planned, but just picked whatever colors/shapes I like in early spring, mostly very cheerful Easter basket colors. I’m especially excited about the snowdrops and crocuses that will come up very early, when I’ll really be missing all the flowers. I planned on putting pot-topper plants in all of the pots, but in the end only planted a viola on top of the ‘Minnow’ daffodils, since I’m guessing that the viola will need sun rather than the darkness of the deck box. So I’m planning on keeping that pot in my coldframe as a sort of experiment.

It’s been a few weeks since I planted the bulbs, and I will say that I meant to do this post last week, but was too sad to write much of anything after the election. I’m still sad, and it’s been so hard this last week to be hopeful. But I did see and love something that Georgie Newbery of Common Farm Flowers posted on her Instagram, about how in bleak times it can be an especially good idea to plant something: “a bulb, a tree, a few lettuce seeds on a tray on your windowsill . . . planting something or sowing a seed or two is a declaration of faith in the future.”

Me, I’m not great at being positive, but I’ve definitely found in the past that gardening forces me to be hopeful. And it’s a tiny thing, planting a bulb—not that helpful in the grand scheme of things—but helpful to the bees that will visit once the bulb becomes a flower. And our little temporary patch of “land” may be just a speck on the planet, but it’s ours right now to invite in beauty and nature, and hopefully wildlife, and, yes, even those damn squirrels.