Front garden, bulbs and plants question...

niftythrifty33

We have recently changed our front garden and have space to plant things as a border around the front lawn. I would like plants that flower throughout the seasons. I wondered whether I can plant bulbs to come up in spring like daffodils, tulips etc. then spring & summer flowering shrubs. I hear people say they have taken the bulbs out for the summer but can I just leave them in and cut them back once they've finished flowering?

Also any ideas of what to plant so that the border has constant flowers or foliage? I'm especially struggling for winter foliage as this border runs along the pavement and will look very bare in winter.

elsien

I never take my bulbs out. The tulips do seem to do a vanishing act, but tbh I find it easier to put new bulbs in each autumn that faff around lifting and storing.
Overwinter you could consider putting wallflowers in. You buy them bare rooted in autumn, (£1 for a bunch of 10) they bush out over the winter, then flower in spring. Lovely scent, some of them. Then pull out and start again the following year.
It depends a bit how much space you've got. Sarcocca looks boringly green but has a lovely scent in a miserable time of year. Or there's the red berries shrubs - pyrancantha (very large!), skimmia japonica or various types of gaultheria.
What height/width are you looking for?

madjackslam

There are plenty of evergreen shrubs, but you need to plan the relationship between the spring-flowering bulbs and the eventual spread of the shrubs. I had a revolting border next to the pavement, which gets full of cans, crisp packets, dog muck, etc.. I didn't want to spend much on it and the soil is rubbish. So I kept an eye out for cheap offers (eg, newspapers, magazines, etc - 100 bulbs for £5 - you'll have seen the kind of thing). I didn't really care what they were, they had to be better than the weedy, rubbish mess. I also planted cheap shrubs (usually mail order) eg, Choisya, Lonicera (green n gold, etc), and took rosemary, lavender and spiraea cuttings from elsewhere in the garden. After a few years, the shrubs are growing to a decent size, and the gaps between them are starting to knit together (which is what I wanted). But the spring bulbs are increasingly lost among the foliage. This autumn I may well dig them out, reuse the nice ones, and ditch the rest!

If you're looking for a permanent succession, it might be worth thinking more in terms of bulbs with summer-flowering perennials that die back in winter (eg, geraniums, echinacea, achillea) and perhaps some grasses too. You'll get a few months in late autumn of drabness (although leave seedheads on) but will soon have the joy of the bulbs poking through.

niftythrifty33

Thank you, that's really handy advice.

aggypanthus

How about a hardy fuschia?
Buy big bags of daff bulbs from most supermarkets, they will last years.They will in shops frm september.