The more the mer­rier when it comes to tulips, large clumps work best.

1. If plant­ing daf­fodils, get them planted early. The sooner you get your bulbs in the ground the sooner they will start to make roots and get grow­ing for next spring. Daffodils need more time to make roots than tulips, in fact you can still plant tulips until the ground freezes

2. Squirrels love to eat freshly planted bulbs and espe­cially love tulips and cro­cuses. Remedies against squir­rels include using cayenne pep­per and chicken wire over where you’ve planted. But cayenne washes off in the rain, and some squir­rels are not deterred any­way. Chicken wire can be annoy­ing to use. I find the sim­plest way to foil the crit­ters is to use a phys­i­cal bar­rier. I col­lect flat rocks and cover the areas where you have planted to stop the squir­rels from dig­ging them up. It also helps you remem­ber where you planted them. You can always move them slightly out of the way in the spring when they start to come up.

3. Cover freshly dug soil. You never want to have a spot in your gar­den that looks smooth and freshly bare. It’s a like putting out a neon sign for squir­rels say­ing: “Bulbs Here, Come & Get It”. Disguise your work as much as pos­si­ble with mulch, leaves, rocks.

4. Add bulb food and/or bone meal with soil under­neath bulb when you plant to give bulbs some extra nutri­ents to keep them going.

5. Water your bulbs, make sure they are well watered before frost. If win­ter is dry, and above zero for a pro­longed period dur­ing win­ter, water again.

6. Plant in large groups, rather than singly. Dig large hole and put tulips of same type close together, in uneven amounts, like 7, 9, 11. They make a much bet­ter show this way.

7. Plant very early and very late vari­eties to have your bulb show last a long time. Especially nice are very early bloomers like species cro­cus and snow­drops. Great thing about these is that they mul­ti­ply over time, and snow­drops might even bloom in February. Try grow­ing some blue scil­las in your lawn, even­tu­ally you’ll have a whole swath of bright blue—a feast for the eyes. I know I really appre­ci­ate hav­ing some­thing bloom in March, makes me believe win­ter is end­ing soon. Plant alli­ums which bloom later and really extend your season.

Fiesta has many vari­eties of bulbs in stock right now, so check them out next time you are at the gar­den centre.