Mulch Your Flower Bulbs in Autumn for a Beautiful Spring Display
What could be prettier after a long winter than a glorious display of flowering spring bulbs? Here’s how you can properly put the bulbs to bed in autumn, so they'll bloom profusely come spring.
2 minute read
Flower bulbs need a good, long, winter’s sleep. Like some people we know, if they wake up before they are fully rested they get kind of cranky, and then they don’t bloom well at all.
During a mild winter, the soil stays too warm and the bulbs begin to come out of dormancy early. They start to grow, and once the tips emerge above the soil line, they are subject to freezing if the temperatures dip back down below freezing. After the bulbs have emerged, they freeze and then usually don’t bloom at all.
Another reason this happens is because the bulbs are not planted deep enough. As the soil goes through the freezing and thawing process, the bulbs can work their way up in the ground.
Mulching
In autumn, apply a 3-4 inch layer of well composted mulch. This layer of mulch will do a couple of things:
- It will maintain a higher moisture content in the soil, which is good as long as the soil isn’t too soggy. Well composted mulch also adds valuable organic matter to the planting bed which makes a great natural fertiliser
- It will also act as an insulator and will prevent the soil from freezing for a while, which is good because you don’t want the bulbs going through a series of short cycles of freezing and thawing. Then when the temperature drops below freezing and stays there for a while, the soil does eventually freeze. Then the mulch works in reverse and keeps the soil from thawing out too early. Keeping it in a frozen state is actually good because the bulbs remain dormant for a longer period of time
When your bulbs do finally wake up, they should be safe from the cold and they’ll be ready to flower beautifully throughout spring and summer!
