Art Knapp Articles
Choosing Your Spring Bulbs for Summer Bloomsin Tips and Tutorials
While tulips, daffodils and hyacinths are planted in the fall for colorful garden bed displays during spring, other flowering bulbs and tubers need to be planted in the spring for showy summer blooms and gorgeous cut flower arrangements. These include: Acidanthera, Allium, Anemone, Begonia, Brodlaea, Dahlia, Freesia, Gladiolus, Iris, Liatris, Lilium, Montbretia, Spraxis and Tigridia. All spring planting should occur AFTER the risk of frost has past. In the Lower Mainland of BC, the best time to plant spring bulbs for summer blooms is between April and June.
When selecting bulbs, be sure to purchase the biggest bulbs available and plant them in the same season you purchase them. If you are planting in the ground, follow the digging depth instructions for each particular plant and place the pointed sprout side up. The space between the top point of the bulb and the ground level surface should match the bulb depth planting instructions. If you are planting in containers, plant the bulbs slightly closer together for increased visual impact. Cover bulbs with good quality planting soil that will keep them moist, and water well. Flowering bulbs prefer a pH of 6 to 7 and adding odorless earthworm castings to the bulb soil mix when you plant will stabilize the pH and improve the soil structure. Check with our garden specialists regarding which particular spring bulb varieties stay in the garden over winter and which need to be brought in before Fall frost.
Growing Media – Bagged Soil and Bat Droppings
Art Knapp Surrey Garden Centre has dozens of quality brand name bagged soil and other growing substances for your indoor and outdoor garden plants in addition to bulk landscape products. Some products are ancient, like volcanic lava, which helps prevent weeds and others are super high tech and modern such as agricultural grade polymer. The bagged soils, bagged fertilizers and bagged manures are all sanitized, fortified, enriched and tested to provide superior healthy plant growth. Peat Moss, Sand, Charcoal, Bark Nuggets, Worm Castings, Seabird Guano, Insect Bat and Fruit Bat Guano are some of the many types of growing media that provide nutrients to your plants, retain and release water, aerate the soil, and suppress soil borne disease.
Gardeners know that good quality bagged soil increases buds and blooms with bright colorful flowers on healthy plants while reducing pests, maintaining PH and preventing moisture loss with decorative topcoats. The growing materials such as sphagnum moss are collected from the provinces of Canada and other mediums are sourced from though out the world. Exotic Philippine Fruit Bats, African Night Crawler Earthworms, South East Asian Seabirds and East Java Cane Worms all provide fast acting nutrient rich minerals that give young plants a boost of energy and fortify mature plants.