One of my neighbors described a spring flower display outside of my Virginia home as something out of a Monet painting. What a compliment!
Inspired by someone in our neighborhood who has a hillside of daffodils that always catches my eye, last fall, we extended some existing flowerbeds to the road, to create a space for a spring flower row. In many places, the dirt was hard and dry … it took a pick axe to break up some of the ground.
I also had two loads of compost delivered which I spread in an effort to improve the soil over the long winter. At the advice of a friend, I also added some worm castings I purchased online.
Before the first freeze, this beginner gardener dug a trench and planted approximately 1,000 tulip and daffodil bulbs – many from Holland Bulb Company. I couldn’t plant them quite as deep as I would have liked, but as much as the spot would allow. I covered the bed with some netting to try to prevent squirrels from eating the bulbs.
The flower bed spanned approximately 112 feet wide.
The timeline
After a harsh winter with weeks of what weather experts called “snowcrete” – heavy ice that wasn’t easy to break up, sprouts started popping up in the bed in early March.
When the bed reached its maturity, neighbors took photos, yelled up to our open windows, stopped outside to compliment the display and shouted compliments as they drove by. In their words, the display was nothing short of amazing.
It truly was a show-stopper.
Timeline
I decided to document the emergence of the row of flowers on TikTok – creating a handful of videos to share with a larger audience than just those who happened to walk or drive by my home in a residential neighborhood in the Shenandoah Valley.
- By March 8, I had an abundance of sprouts coming up through the compost and a few daffodil blooms emerging.
- Tulip bulbs started rising with buds around March 20 but many were very short and not the long-stemmed flowers I had expected. A flower farmer friend in Augusta County said the early high temperatures caused the buds to open before they could fully form their stems. She was having the same problem in her u-pick field.
- A few days later, by March 23, some of the tulips were coming in with longer stems in a wide array of colors and shades: pink, purple, orange, white, yellow and red. Some looked like traditional tulips; others resembled daylilies, peonies and roses.
- By March 29, the tulip and daffodil row had reached its full potential with vibrant stems and flowers.
As we hit the one-month mark since the first tulips emerged, the new blooms are coming to an end, and many of the blooms aren’t quite as vibrant bringing an end to the dazzling spring display. There are still a few new blooms and some that are hanging on despite freezing temperatures over the last two nights.
Planning for next year
Was the effort worth it? Absolutely. It was all I had hope for, dreamed of and more.
I didn’t cut a single flower for a bouquet inside the house; I found that the display with every individual flower far outweighed having a vase or two around the house.
Maybe next year, I’ll cut a few, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it this year.
Of course, there’s always room for improvement because I am definitely a beginner when it comes to flower farming.
In Virginia, in zone 7A, experts say you don’t have to pull up the bulbs and can leave them to naturalize over the summer and winter.
I have a goal to expand the width of the bed by adding more bulbs. I’ll wait to buy most of them until they are on sale late this fall because I spent a fortune on bulbs for the initial planting.
I’m hopeful that most of the flowers will return next year, and that with the addition of some new bulbs, will paint another masterpiece to enjoy next spring.
The same flower bed also includes peonies, rose bushes, day lilies and more to provide color throughout the flower growing season.
I’ll soon plant a row of cosmos and zinnias to continue the colorful row of flowers this summer. The risk of frost usually goes away by the first or second week of May. While the flowers may be taller than the daffodils and tulips, I’m still hopeful the end result will be something spectacular.
Time will tell.
Gardening products that I use and love
- Bulb Planter Tool, 5-in-1 garden tool
- Saw-Tooth Edger Lawn Tool
- Japanese Weeding Sickle
- Berry&Bird Swoe Garden Hoe
- Tiller Cultivator for Garden and Lawn
- Heavy Duty Weed Barrier Landscape Fabric
- Grampa’s Weeder with Long Handle
- Digital Rain Gauge with Thermometer
On my bookshelf
- Cool Flowers by Lisa Mason Ziegler
- Garden Roses by GracieLinda Poulson
- Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers
- Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden
- National Audubon Society: Field Guild to North American Birds
- Homebody by Joanna Gaines
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Crystal Graham
