Spring bulbs and how to use them

Saffron-coloured stamens in a sunlit crocus

I could not have been more pleased to see the first spring bulbs opening their petals this weekend to catch a few precious rays of winter sunshine. Perhaps I have been particularly unobservant, or maybe it's unusually cold round here, but I've been longing for them for weeks to no avail. Happily, this weekend they were out in force (well, not quite in force, but out nonetheless). I sometimes find the big brash brassy trumpets of daffs lining the roadsides and sprouting all over parks and gardens a little too much, but the dainty earlier bulbs are the perfect way to ease yourself out of winter and in, finally, to spring. 

My favourite way to use these bulbs in designs is very naturalistic and unaffected: scatter a load beneath a tree (an early-flowering fruit tree is perfect, as the bare crown lets light through to the ground below and the blossom creates a stunning spring picture almost too good for words), plant where they fall, and leave them to happily reproduce and spread to create a carpet of early spring colour. You can get all sorts of interesting and unusual (and expensive) varieties, but if you're going for the carpet look you just need to bulk buy a cheap and cheerful sort. One colour looks terribly stylish (purple crocuses, for instance), but on this occasion I'm a fan of the 'explosion in a seed factory' look, and think the more the merrier. A range of different bulbs will help to keep the interest going a bit longer too, as different species should flower over different weeks. Try cyclamen, whose marbled silvery leaves are just as pretty as their petals.

Sadly most of us don't have the space to dedicate part of the lawn to an ever-increasing display of spring flowers, but if that's the case for you, don't fear: the tiny, delicate nature of these plants makes them ideal for containers, and by bringing them closer to eye level in a window-box or similar you can enjoy their finer details all the better. My favourites for this sort of treatment are the irises - particularly little Iris reticulata which comes in a number of different varieties. These two are 'Katharine Hodgkin' and 'Joyce ('Joyce' being the darker, more violet flower).  

They're only between 10 and 15cm high, but the colours and markings are so pretty that they more than deserve some special attention. Plant them en masse in some sharply drained soil in a container, top with pea shingle, and enjoy. Here I would advise restraint in colours, unless you're feeling confident - you can see that the two options above are not natural partners. 

The only problem with spring bulbs, as with so much in gardening, is that once you see them in someone else's garden it's too late to do anything about getting them for yourself until next year. The only thing to do is make a note in your diary for September/October, and look out for bulb sales at local garden centres, in nurseries, and online. If you're very organised you can make a note and take pictures of particularly good combinations, but then you'd need to be organised enough to know where you put them in 6 months' time, which is an altogether more thorny problem and not something I'm qualified to advise on...

Decision, decisions

I have recently moved into a new flat, which, amazingly for where I am, has both a front and a back garden. Both need quite a bit of work, and now the days are getting longer (and the fear is setting in of people seeing a garden designer's garden looking a mess) I am pondering the best way to go ahead. The front garden is top of my list, because it's what everyone sees, and in the colder months even I will see it more than the back garden. I like to work in the front room, looking out onto the street, and a bed full of weeds and leggy shrubs is not inspiring. Here is it looking particularly, almost impressively, tatty.

In designing my own garden I am faced with the dilemma that every small garden presents. I want something that looks smart, lush, and green all year, but that also has bursts of seasonal colour depending on the season. The difficulty is that there's just not enough space for both. Herbaceous perennials will die down in the winter to leave bare earth (swiftly followed by weeds), and evergreens will take up too much space to let the decorative plants do their thing. I don't want bedding plants and endless maintenance, and I don't want a practical but boring carpet of Euonymus fortunei. I am swiftly become my most difficult client. 

However, I may have hit upon a solution. The windows overlooking this sorry sight have large sills just begging for window boxes. I am pondering a green bed full of native ferns to look good all year - they'll complement the existing plummy Acer and not demand too much of their owner, with the colour and seasonal interest provided by the window boxes. I can manage to change the planting in those 4ish times a year, surely. 

So now I'm dreaming of what to put in the window boxes. Thompson and Morgan have some lovely non-climbing sweet peas, which I am imagining romantically trailing down the boxes, their scent seducing passers-by and the lovely soft colours looking good from inside and out. 

Now the only thing to do is get outside and get to work 

on making things as welcoming as possible for my 

new plants. I fear that choosing the flowers might have 

been the easy bit...