Winds howl, rains deluge, the creepy chill of autumn encroaches while bulbs pile up overwhelmingly in their stashing place on the porch. Mark you, this porch is not of the all-weather-comfort-zone variety, but just a nice old screened-in one with a sizeable summer-evening dining table that does double duty as a staging platform for the placement of the spring garden. Enough room to create different groups - all the red/white streaked and striated tulips (Estella Rynveld and Carnaval de Nice from Scheepers, Semper Maxima from Colorblends) that are going to chromatically comingle with the purple allium (5 from Brent and Becky here, a mixture from New Holland Bulb there) -- things like that...
Waiting for all the bulb orders to arrive is a heady and frustrating exercise that can easily be remedied with advance planning. Early ordering works best but frantic last minute calls, thank God, work too. Our favorite suppliers are still shipping - usually till around November 10th or so... Time and effort-saving devices like layering different bulbs in the same hole (i.e. Spanish bluebells with Fritillaria meleagris and poeticus daffodils) work very well, but means you need them simultaneous
.ly. That goes for tulips too --- the only way to mix and match is the same system as putting together your outfit . It's important to have all your bulbs around you (just like the clothes in your closet)....and treat the muscari hyacinths and the little reticulata iris like accessories...

With Lys Marigold taking in the wonders of Philip Johnson's Glass House ----
accessories in place.