How to time travel to spring

The anticipation of cheerful spring bulbs can keep the gardener going through the dull winter months. John Hoyland advises on what to plant for every situation, from gravel to orchards, sun, shade or in pots

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PART of the pleasure of gardening lies in the anticipation of future delights. At this time of year, as the garden is beginning to hunker down for autumn and before the descent into the dark days of winter, gardeners can console themselves by planting spring-flowering bulbs, envisaging the colour and cheer they will bring when the bleak days are done.

The enchantment of most kinds of spring bulbs is ephemeral, sometimes lasting only a couple of weeks, but each is a waymarker that leads the garden out of the winter and towards summer. Long-awaited snowdrops are quickly joined by aconites, which give way to crocus, before waves of daffodils and hyacinths and an explosion of tulips and alliums. Each bulb bounds into flower and then falls back, withdrawing into itself to wait, it is hoped, for a repeat performance the following spring.

Bulbs are the most dependable of plants; with the minimum of effort, they will reliably flower only a few months after planting.

Next spring's potential flowers have already developed within the bulb. How well they perform depends less on what greets them as they emerge and much more on the conditions they faced last season. Newly bought bulbs will have been pampered in nurseries or given perfect growing conditions in fields, which means they are almost guaranteed to flower. Plant over the next two months, leaving tulips until November.