Yes, these plants don’t demand a lot of water, and will do well in your desert garden if planted correctly. Read on to find out how to plant them.
September and October are the times to plant daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses and tulips in your desert garden. If hard frost is expected late, you can wait until November to plant tulips. These bulb plants require cold weather to bloom. Some people, who live in the low desert or in warmer climates, refrigerate the bulbs before planting them.
Daffodils and crocuses will be the first to bloom in the spring, and, if the winter is cold and snowy, their green foliage which precedes the flowers will be a welcome sight.
Here are some tips on planting bulbs:
- Pick a sunny, well-drained spot for your bulbs. I actually had the best luck planting mine on the north side of the house. In the desert, you may run into caliche or hard clay. If that's the case, then you're going to want to amend the soil. But we'll get to that in a minute.
- Dig down 12 inches or so to loosen the soil. You're not going to be planting that deep, but your bulbs are going to need room to grow and a place from which to draw nutrients. I like to plant my bulbs in "drifts," instead of planting them one at a time. So I dig wide areas - several feet square - and plant the bulbs in groups. There are also augurs available with which you can drill holes and plant the bulbs inside the holes.
- If the soil has clay, add some sand, and maybe some loosened peat moss into the loosened dirt.
- Mix in some organic compost, and some bone meal or slow-release bulb fertilizer.
- Plant your bulbs. The bulbs should be planted about three times deeper than their height. For instance, if a bulb is two inches high, it should be planted six inches deep. Remember to plant them in groups. Remember to plant the bulbs with the pointed end up and the flat or blunt end down.
- Now, put soil back onto your bulbs.
- Water well.
- Cover with two to three inches of mulch.
- Wait til spring.
