Fall bulb planting is an investment in spring beauty

Last weekend I experienced a first in more than two decades of gardening: I planted fall bulbs in shorts. And, it turns it was much more pleasant than the usual frostbite-ridden affair.

Bulb planting is the ultimate example of faith in planting. Few other garden tasks take months to offer any kind of payoff. You can walk away from a day of planting hundreds of bulbs and nothing looks different than when you started.

That’s probably why every year I toy with the idea of skipping it and, because there is a long window when they can be planted — right up until the ground is frozen — I usually put off planting bulbs until all other autumn garden tasks are checked off the list. It’s a lot of work — although this revolutionary idea of planting bulbs before it’s freezing outside certainly makes the process more pleasurable — but the payoff in spring is never a let down.

In  order to enjoy that payoff, however, you have to get them in the ground, and how you do that depends a lot on the bulbs you’re planting and the look you’re going for.

One of the most efficient methods of planting involves a planting auger — longer ones of 28 inches or more are back-savers — and a cordless drill, which allows you to quickly plant a lot of larger bulbs like daffodils or alliums. It goes even faster if you have a planting partner, with one person drilling holes and the other following behind placing bulbs and back filling soil.

If you want large clumps of bulbs rather that individual  flowers, digging a hole with a spade and placing a group of bulbs at the proper depth — typically two to three times the height of the bulb — will achieve the look in one season.

Smaller bulbs such as grape hyacinth, crocus or snowdrops can be easily planted individually or a few to a hole with a trowel or hori hori.

It is difficult to create a truly random pattern, so one way to plant bulbs in a more natural layout is by “bowling” with a handful of them and then planting each bulb where it lands.

One tool I never use to plant bulbs is a dedicated bulb planter, which typically has a U-shaped handle on top of a metal tube. Not only are these a lot of work — particularly the short ones that need to be used on your knees — but they are typically time consuming. Any digging tool can do the same job quicker.

And if you’re planting bulbs in pots or in raised beds to be used for cut flowers, the fastest way to crank through dozens of bulbs is to remove the soil to the depth you need for planting, lay out the bulbs just an inch or two apart, then cover with the removed soil.

Then you can forget about them until spring, when you pat yourself on the back for a job well done many months before.