Planting Tulips with Muscari

 

Planting Tulips with Muscari Video transcript

Hi, I'm Cheryl, Head Gardener at White Flower Farm. It's fall and it's bulb planting time! I'd like to show you how I plant one of my favorite bulb combinations... Tulips with Muscari (Grape Hyacinths).

The Muscari have a pretty long bloom time in the spring so they overlap bloom with lots of Tulip varieties. I like to pair up Tulip 'Prinses Irene' with Muscari armeniacum. This is one of my all-time favorite bulb combos. Let's plant it!

I've decided to plant my bulb combo in front of the shrub Physocarpus opulifolius Little Devil™. The dark color of the Ninebark's foliage will really set off the glowing orange Tulip 'Prinses Irene' and the steely blue of the Muscari. I use my garden fork to loosen up the soi where I'm going to plant... then I lay out my Tulips. I'm planting 50 Tulips spaced 5" apart or so... using a hand trowel, I plant the Tulips 6-7" deep.

The next step is to randomly spread out my Muscari bulbs directly over where I've just planted the Tulips. I'm putting out 100 bulbs. Then using the trowel, I plant them. Because the Muscari is a smaller bulb than the Tulips, It doesn't need to be planted as deep. Planting depth for these guys is about 4".

That's it! Planting done! I can't wait for spring to check out this cool combo!

We offer several varieties of Muscari in white and various shades of blue, and many more varieties of Tulips in a rainbow range of colors. Get creative, experiment, and put together your own pairs! This is an easy way to spice up your springtime bulb display!