Why we adore bulbs.
As a studio, we are devoted to bulbs. Every autumn, as the bulb catalogues start to land at the studio, Mary heads up our client ordering, and there’s a quiet thrill to the whole process. The work of specifying, ordering and layering the coming year’s display is one of the most rewarding parts of our design year, because bulbs do a job nothing else in the planting palette can match.
Bulbs extend the season
The first snowdrops push through in January when the garden is still half-asleep. By February and March it’s crocus, Iris reticulata, early narcissus. April belongs to tulips and fritillaries. Camassias carry us into May. Alliums take us through June and into early July. Then come the summer bulbs: lilies, galtonia, hymenocallis. Late summer brings gladioli, crinum, dahlias. And right at the end of the year, colchicum, nerine and x Amarine hold off autumn. That’s ten months of structure, rhythm and vibrancy from one category of plant. Bulbs are the layer beneath the layers.
Bulbs fill the gaps perennials can’t
Spring bulbs do their work long before perennials wake up, and they do it in almost no ground space. A tulip bulb is the size of a plum. Plant a hundred of them and you have a scheme. The foliage, once the flowers have gone, disappears among emerging perennials and grasses. That’s why we weave bulbs through the borders rather than bedding them in blocks. Herbaceous geraniums, nepeta, hemerocallis and grasses all do a beautiful job of camouflaging dying bulb foliage while the bulbs feed the following year’s display.
Bulbs feed the wildlife that wakes up hungry
Early colour is not just for us. Solitary bees, queen bumblebees and hoverflies emerge on the first warm days of the year and they need nectar immediately. A garden full of early bulbs is a garden doing real biodiversity work, not accidentally, not as an afterthought, but by design. That’s central to how we work. Bold. Vibrant. Biodiverse.
Bulbs reward scale
Ten tulips are nothing. A hundred tulips are a scheme. We tell clients the same thing every autumn: think in hundreds, not handfuls. A pack of ten will be lost in even the smallest garden. Bulbs are one of the few plant categories where quantity genuinely changes the design. Plant generously and plant naturalistically. We ask our planting teams to scatter bulbs randomly through a border rather than setting them out in rows. The effect you want is one that looks as if the bulbs chose the spot themselves.
Bulbs are generous with their pairings
A good bulb sits happily with perennials, grasses, emerging foliage, the last of the winter structure. They don’t demand a bed of their own. They slot into the scheme and disappear when they’re done. That’s how we get bold colour and interest from January to November without sacrificing a single square metre of border.
This week’s jar, from my garden
Here’s what went in this week, and why each one earns its place on an AMPG planting plan. Five narcissus, five tulips. My garden is where I test these before they go anywhere near a client’s scheme.
Narcissus ‘Avalon’
A reverse bicolour daffodil with lemon-yellow petals and a yellow cup that fades to a soft creamy-white as the flower ages. AGM, large-cupped, division 2. The fade is exactly the kind of behaviour I want from a bulb in a designed scheme: nothing static, everything moving. Good vase life, strong stem, reliable, lightly fragrant. We specify it where we want a daffodil that reads as pale and luminous rather than brassy yellow.
Narcissus ‘Hunter’s Moon’
A cool lemon-yellow narcissus that softens towards ivory as it matures. Beautifully proportioned, with the elegant restraint we look for when we want daffodil structure without classic daffodil colour. It holds its own in a mixed scheme without shouting. Perfect for schemes where the palette is deliberately quiet.
Narcissus ‘Hunter Dawn’
A warmer companion to Hunter’s Moon, with soft apricot tones washed through cream. Refined rather than flashy, and one of those narcissus that earns its place in a scheme aimed at clients who thought they didn’t like daffodils. The pairing of the two Hunters together in a planting plan gives a subtle tonal shift that reads beautifully at a distance.
Narcissus ‘Bella Estrella’
Possibly my personal favourite daffodil. A split-corona narcissus with frilled, split petals in white and soft cream. Genuinely sculptural in a jar, and something of a talking point in a border because the form is so different from a classic trumpet daffodil. We use it in naturalistic schemes where we want the familiar silhouette of a narcissus pushed slightly off-centre, or where the arrangement needs a moment of unusual form to carry the eye.
Narcissus ‘Regeneration’
A Jonquilla narcissus, clump-forming to around 40cm with slightly grey-green leaves. Lemon-yellow petals with a yellow cup that fades to near-white, carried three to five flowers per stem, and the most exquisite spicy-lemon fragrance. Late-flowering, which makes it invaluable when you want to hold narcissus interest into late April and early May, bridging into the tulips. We specify it where we want a daffodil that reads beautifully at distance, en masse, across meadow planting or in generous drifts. And the name, of course, earns its place on a planting plan before the flower even opens.
Tulipa ‘Crown of Negrita’
A Coronet tulip, crown-shaped, with fluted, curled petals in deep plum-purple, standing to around 50cm in late spring. Long-lasting and genuinely architectural, this isn’t a classic single tulip form. It’s a sculpted, theatrical flower, and when used sparingly it gives a late-season border real depth and drama. We use it where the scheme needs weight and a moment of dark intensity, particularly against softer palettes.
Tulipa ‘Ronaldo’
A Triumph tulip in rich dark reddish-purple, burgundy-plum with a velvety, smoky sheen. Strong, upright stems to 40-50cm. Mid to late spring. This is the one we reach for when we want a dark tulip that actually reads dark, rather than fading to muddy brown in the sun. It pairs beautifully with paler companions. Classic single form, excellent garden performer, superb in the vase.
Tulipa ‘Amber Glow’
A Triumph tulip with a glowing amber-yellow base that flushes into deep garnet-red at the petal tips, with fine feathering and plum undertones. Around 40cm. When the sun hits the flowers they are genuinely luminous. A planting of Amber Glow alongside Ronaldo and Crown of Negrita gives a rich, fire-toned palette that reads warm and jewel-like rather than sweet. This is a tulip that flatters everything around it and still holds its own.
Tulipa ‘Slawa’
A sport of Gavota, and one of the most dynamic tulips we specify. Triumph form, to around 45cm. The petals open deep burgundy-maroon, feathered with merlot, edged with a high-contrast copper-apricot. As the flowers mature the margins shift again, to apricot-pink, peach, sometimes rose-gold. The same clump of tulips reads differently at every angle and through the day. Long-lasting, and generous enough to perennialise in the right soil.
Tulipa ‘Apeldoorn Elite’
A Darwin Hybrid, this tulip is tall, strong-stemmed, 50-60cm, with large red-orange blooms edged in a golden-yellow ribbon. AGM. A workhorse and an absolute classic. The Darwin Hybrids are the tulip group most likely to come back year after year, which makes them invaluable on projects where a one-season bulb display simply isn’t the brief. Apeldoorn Elite is the kind of tulip you specify in hundreds for an avenue planting, or for a scheme where you need impact at a distance.
Why we adore bulbs.
How we use bulbs in practice
We specify bulbs in layers. Early species for pollinators and winter lift. Mid-season narcissus and tulips for the spring statement. Camassia, alliums and late tulips to bridge into summer. Lilies and galtonia for the early summer border. Then colchicum, nerine, crinum and x Amarine for the last colour of the year. The idea is always that the garden is never doing nothing, and whatever it is doing, it’s doing it on purpose.
We plant deeply, three times the depth of the bulb, not the standard twice-deep. It promotes a better display year on year, protects bulbs from summer drying, and means the foliage comes up through the perennials rather than flopping over them. We never plant in rows. We ask our planting teams to scatter bulbs through the border so the effect reads as natural. We think in hundreds, not tens.
And we test them here first, in my garden in Hampshire. Some stay on the specification list. Some get moved. Some get quietly written out. That’s the job. Plants, People, Place, Purpose.
Come back for the next jar.
Ann-Marie
Ann-Marie Powell FSGLD
Founder and Principal, Ann-Marie Powell Gardens
