Deep planting, was tigridia pavonia
Jane McGary (Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:53:03 PDT)

Frank wrote:

Mostly the instructions that come with commercial bulbs are erroneous
in this respect. It's remarkable how deep bulbs will "pull down,"
left to their own devices, even in stiff soil. Sometimes this allows
them to avoid tunneling rodents as well as winter cold. I've noticed
that themids (Triteleia, Brodiaea, etc.) have much more robust
flowering once they are quite deep, and I think this is also true of
Calochortus, even though both may have relatively small bulbs.
Another kind that survives cold winters if planted deep is Eucomis; I
see five species doing well in the garden this year after a winter in
the mid-teens F.

The easiest way to accomplish deep planting is to use an ordinary
spade, shove it into the soil the full length of the blade, pry the
soil back, and place the bulbs in the trench thus created; then just
remove the blade and press the soil back in place. If you're making a
new bed and either emplacing new soil or double-digging, you can
place the bulbs during the process.

I think there are a few kinds of bulbs that don't respond well to
deep planting and normally grow near the soil surface; Scilla (in the
broad sense) seems to be one.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA