This past fall, my wife and I did up a flower garden. Using rocks as an 'edging', various bulbs were planted in specific areas. In 1 area, I planted a dozen large hyacinths.
Now that the flowers are up, all all 12 came up . . . there are 3 of them that grew quite a ways away. Within the rock edging, outside of it, etc. and a couple of feet away from where the 12 were planted.
I know it sounds off the wall. There's no evidence of critters digging up and reburying the bulbs . . they were all accounted for. We had nothing else planted in there. I tilled the entire area as far down as it'll go (7 inches). We were careful to account for all bulbs & the 'wood shavings' that are in the packaging (if any) gets dumped into the bulbs before covering.
Any ideas of what could've happened?
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mooseantlers
- Full Member
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- Location: New Hampshire
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mooseantlers
- Full Member
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- Joined: Tue Apr 29, 2008 5:51 pm
- Location: New Hampshire
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opabinia51
- Super Green Thumb
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My initial thoughts were that they were planted there before and the evidence that you have eluded to in your latter post suggests that. I guess the tiller just missed the bulbs.
Incidentally, we had a lengthy discussion on tilling here several years ago and came to the conclusion that tilling is actually really bad for the soil and your garden. It's good once but, if you till year after year you will break down the structure of you soil and reduce plant health in the soil. It's a lot more complicated than that but, I won't get into the nitty gritty.
I was once a tiller as well but, I've now seen the light.
Incidentally, we had a lengthy discussion on tilling here several years ago and came to the conclusion that tilling is actually really bad for the soil and your garden. It's good once but, if you till year after year you will break down the structure of you soil and reduce plant health in the soil. It's a lot more complicated than that but, I won't get into the nitty gritty.
I was once a tiller as well but, I've now seen the light.
Sorry, not buy the tiller is bad for the soil stuff, not in home gardens and a little common sense is in order when you're tilling. You want to till only deep enough to get good tilth, then plant, mulch and leave it be.
If your soil is healthy in the first place, tilling shouldn't affect the microbial action for very long.
If your soil is healthy in the first place, tilling shouldn't affect the microbial action for very long.