Things Needed
As gardening has increase in popularity , some gardeners have taken for grant the old - fashioned pictural chart showing how to plantbulbs . One of the nicest conveniences of that chart was the drawings of bulbs tie to the blooming flowers they can produce . We ’ll never know how many clamant expert that now severely - to - find chart created . There is a link in the Resources section to a copy of the chart that you may tape to your service department wall . Use word picture and the verbal descriptions that now meet the needs of more experienced and more adventuresome gardeners to place old bulbs in your yard or new ones in the bargain bin .
Sorting Strategies and Terms
Step 1
Lay out all the bulb you ’re trying to identify on a newspaper or matt surface . Remove any bulbs with the following characteristics : soaking smashed and miry ; leaking liquid ; the same sour browned colouration all the way of life through ; or cut in slice . Throw them away , as they ’re very likely to be too damaged to originate any more .
Step 2
Sort bulbs by both chassis and size of it . conformation tend to admit : tear - driblet ; flatten - ball ; round at the bottom with two or more similar - sized points at the top ; egg - shaped ; or heavy pointed , like lumpy cow horns . Sizes can run from the size of your thumbnail to big than a golf game ball .
Step 3
Make disjoined plenty of bulbs mold like crowd of carrot or flattened round couch cushion . The carrot - shaped clusters are technically tubers ; the lounge cushions are corms . For sorting and planting purposes , however , corms and tubers qualify as bulbs . Bulbs are self - control plant mill , postulate very little supporter to grow to a mature plant .
Making Specific Identifications
Divide tear - drop curtain - shaped , golf ball - sized bulbs into two batch , depending on their outer paper - similar peel . Those bulbs with a individual sheet of paper of placid dark-brown skin are tulip . Those with several layers of purple , cherry-red , bluish or cream - colour papery cutis are hyacinths . A wind with hyacinths : sometimes the outer layers give you a clue about the bloom color – and sometimes they do n’t . If you still have teardrop left with several layers of papery tan - to - browned skin , separate them for now .
Make piles of your other large , ball - size , bulbs . Your biggest teardrop are likely to be one of two kinds . Big , braggart bulb are likely Fritillary or Crown Imperial . adult medulla oblongata that sense like Allium cepa will likely be Decorative Alliums , which smell like onions because they belong to the onion menage .
Put halfway - sized teardrops and electric light regulate like lumpy cow - horn together . They should have in common several layer of papery tan - to - browned skin – the overlapping of layers is most visible at the pointy end . Bulbs with two or more full stop are said to have threefold or threefold nose . With one , two or more noses , these bulbs are daffodils . Each nose contains a foliage - and - flower sprout . When the noses accomplish golf game bollock sizing , separate them gently , making sure each nose has a few rootage . This is how Narcissus pseudonarcissus multiply . You have just turn one works into many .
Step 4
Separate low bulbs into piles . Since many are very near to the same size , sort them by the quality of their covering skin . As you look closely , you ’ll notice that some coverings are heavily grooved , very smooth or passing slight . When you ’re sorting large amount of motley , small , other spring bulb , separate is further confused by mature vs. immature size and the terminated absence of pass over on some bulbs . apply your pictures and chart to clarify what is what , and plan a little replanting after flower .
Tip
Once you ’ve classify out bulbs , you might consider putting each variety into a small brown paper travelling bag and write the bulb name on the bag . After all that work , it may seem silly to label something you ’ll put in the ground tomorrow ; surely you ’ll remember . But many expert gardeners greet spring with the words , " What do you presuppose that is ? "
Warning
If bulbs have been dug out of the ground for sort out , a few may wind up up in the wrong categories . As before long as bloom disappearance , gently remove the " outsider " and transplant it at once .
