It’s October, and time to be thinking about planting bulbs for next spring. I think I’d like to look for more orange tulips to add to the bulbs that Toby “helped” me plant the fall before he died. This past spring, they were bright and beautiful in our garden, and a cheery reminder of our dear, sweet boy.
A lovely lady asked me whether she could plant bulbs in a pot and leave them on her balcony till spring. I asked a very knowledgeable gardening friend and amazing gardener, and he said no, it would be too cold. Because a similar question has come up in the past with a variety of gardening plants, I wanted to learn more about why it doesn’t work. Time for some homework!
Bulbs need a certain numbers of hours of the cold to be able to do their thing in the spring; chemical changes happen so that the bulbs will grow properly when the time is right, but it can’t be too cold. The soil acts like a cozy insulating blanket, and I read that the temperature underground can be up to twenty degrees warmer than above ground on a cold winter day. Imagine that! The bulbs planted directly in the ground enjoy a fairly constant temperature, while bulbs in pots might suffer from too much variance from warming back to bitter cold. I learned that storing a pot planted with bulbs in an uninsulated garage is likely to be too cold in our climate, and an insulated one will be far too warm.
So I checked again with our gardening friend, and he said that one possible solution was to plant the bulbs in a large pot, then sink the entire pot in the ground, right up to the rim. And another possibility that I read about is to put your bulbs in the fridge for eight to ten weeks before planting. This has drawbacks, however, because if you keep apples in the fridge along with your bulbs, the apples release ethylene gas that could prevent your bulbs from blooming. If you are willing to take a chance and try an experiment, be sure to store your bulbs in a tightly sealed bag far away from your apples!
Give it a try! Some of gardening’s best surprises come when you push the envelope a little and try something new. If it doesn’t work, well, you still had the fun of trying. And then again, if it works, you’ve achieved success!
Our next regular horticultural regular meeting is on Wednesday, October 21 at 7 p.m. in SIGN on North Street. It’s “Member Sharing” night, a chance to hear all kinds of helpful hints and tips from our own gardeners! Bring a pen and paper to jot these great ideas down!
Also, we’ve got something very exciting on the calendar, and any interested gardeners are invited to the Saskatchewan Horticultural Association Provincial Convention and AGM which will be held in Yorkton on October 23 and 24 and hosted by our group. Just log on to www.yorktonhort.ca for all the details and plan to join us! There will be interesting speakers including a presentation by All About Flowers; a gardening presentation by Warren Crossman; a presentation by Don Stein from the Godfrey Dean Gallery teaching us how to do garden photography; and a presentation by Sonja Pawliw about her beautiful Healing Garden, plus a banquet on Friday night with music by Jackie Guy. It will be great! Please note this: you do not have to be a member of the group or any hort society to attend: if you are an interested gardener, you are more than welcome to join us!
I read a lovely quote that said “God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say ‘thank you’?” We are truly blessed with so many things! Thank you! Have a great week, and a Happy Thanksgiving. And to my precious sweetheart Keith, Happy Anniversary!
