Zone 7 Fall Bulb Planting Recommendations
Fall Bulbs
Fall is fast approaching so it’s time to get ready for the fall planting season. Fall planting season means bulbs for many of us but if you are like many gardeners in zone 7, your bulb plantings can be hit or miss. There are many factors why zone 7 can be a tricky area for fall planting. First, there are the eratic weather patterns. Unlike lower zones where it gets cold fast and stays cold, zone 7 can have some pretty wild temperature swings as late as december. When I first moved here from South Florida, I was expecting some relatively cold winters. Much to my surprise, my first December here turned out to be quite mild with temperatures in the upper 50s and 60s. Call it global warming if you want but this area can pose a challange when timing your fall plantings. This of course caused may bulbs in the area to poke out sooner rather than later. It has been pretty much the same every other year I have been here. Another challange can be those pesky voles, that’s right, not moles but voles. You see moles, for the most part, don’t eat vegitation. They are pretty strict insectivores and wormivores so your bulbs are pretty safe from them. Voles on the other had, love to munch them. I lost 100% of my bulbs to them the first time I tried my hand at fall bulb planting.
So, how can you have success with bulbs in zone 7? The first, is the timing. The best time to plant bulbs is once the day time temperatures start to stay in the 40s. This can be as late as December. So don’t automatically start planting as soon as the calendar says it’s fall because chances are it will probably be too warm. It’s ok to buy your bulbs early, in fact, many online nurseries offer great deals to early bulb buyers. Just check out this great selection at Blooming Bulb .
As I mentioned earlier, the second challenge can be pests. So how do you keep them safe? One of the common suggestions is to use large collanders as a protective cage for your bulbs. Simply fill your collander with soil, place your bulbs inside the collader then bury the collander along with your bulbs. One of the reasons, I don’t like this is because collanders are expensive! Imagine if you were planting 100 bulbs! So a better sollution is to use bulb baskets which at $2 a piece are much more economical (you can find them here). Of course, you can always use your imagination to come up with cheaper sollutions. Whatever you choose, simply placing your bulbs in a cage like contraption should keep them safe from pests. They can also be quite convinient when it comes time to dig them up and divide them.
So that’s it, just follow these 2 simple recommendations and you will increase your chances of actually getting flowers from your fall plantings!