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Did you plant any spring bulbs in your garden?

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I was wondering how many of my readers spent some time this fall planting spring bulbs in their garden?

If you haven’t planted any bulbs yet but you’d like to have some tulips, daffodils, iris, crocus, or hyacinths blooming in your garden beds come next spring you’d better get to the garden stores and purchase your selections now. Many of the stores that sell bulbs will be running out soon.

I purchased a number of new bulbs for my garden this fall. I made the purchase about two and a half weeks ago and I’ve yet to plant them. I haven’t been feeling all that well and it’s been cold and rainy here lately. Today it’s very nice out. I really should get out there and plant them. Maybe I will. I still have a bit of time though. LOL

So tell me – Did you plant any bulbs yet or are you thinking about it? If you did or if you are going to please tell me what kinds of flowers you ended up planting.






What is a bulb anyway?

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Bulb, Corm, tuber, Rhizome! What does it all mean?

The term “bulb” is commonly used to refer to the thickened underground storage organ produced by some plants. However, many of what we call bulbs may be corms, tubers, tuberous roots or rhizomes.

You might think of a bulb as you would a chicken egg. The outside of a “true bulb” is a compressed stem (basal plate) bearing a growing point or flower bud and enclosed by thick, fleshy scales called bulb scales. Much like the egg’s shell protects the growing chick enclosed inside the egg.

Some true bulbs such as narcissus, amaryllis and tulip are protected from drying and mechanical injury by dry and membranous outer scales called a tunic. Other true bulbs such as lilies are called non-truncate or scaly because their outer scales are succulent and separate, giving the bulb a scaly appearance.

A corm is a solid mass of stem tissue with a basal plate on the bottom and a terminal shoot bud on top. In addition to the terminal shoot bud, axillary or lateral buds are produced at each of the nodes along the sides of the corm. In the event that the terminal bud should be injured or otherwise prevented from growing, these lateral buds are capable of producing a shoot. The solid stem structure of the corm is protected against injury and water loss by dry leaf bases that are similar to the tunic that enclose true bulbs. Gladiolus and watsonia are typical cormous plants.

Tubers such as caladium and gloriosa are thickened underground stems with many buds (eyes) present in regular order over their surfaces. Unlike true bulbs and corms which are covered with dried leaves or scales, tubers are covered with a tough skin. Tuberous roots such as dahlia and ranunculus are true roots and lack nodes and internodes. Buds are present only at the crown or stem end of the root.

Rhizomes are thickened horizontal stems growing along or below the surface of the ground. Underground rhizomes such as canna and calla produce roots on their lower surface and send shoots above ground.

The term bulb will probably always be used when referring to plants that produce underground storage organs.

My Addiction

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I went out on Saturday and bought several types of spring bulbs from Freesia to tulips. I haven’t purchased bulbs for a couple of years because I planted so many in the first three years that we had the garden. I think I’ve planted more than 3000 bulbs in those first years.

Unfortunately some of the bulbs have either died off, or else they were dug up and carried off by those pesky squirrels, so I just had to purchase more right?

Depending on the weather I hope to plant them later today or perhaps tomorrow. No delaying like I did with all of those annuals. Uh huh, these are going in the ground as soon as possible.

I’ll tell you exactly what I bought and planted in my next post – and how many there were. I don’t have the bags near me right now but I’d estimate there are at least 300 bulbs this time round!

Yeah I’m addicted to gardening, so shoot me. LOL

It’s click and comment Monday and yeah, I don’t have a renter, but please feel free to visit one of the links in my blogroll ( My blogroll is on the Links page) Pick someone to visit and leave a comment, then visit their renter or someone on their blogroll and leave a comment there. Do this at least five times to spread the bloggy love.

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