How to Grow Bulbs and Rhizomes
Want Low Maintenance with a Big Bang?
We’re featuring How to Grow Bulbs this week at The Tropical Grower because Bulbs and Rhizomes are some of the easiest grows with super low maintenance. They are almost a growing hack. Growers, new and old, often overlook buying bulbs instead of the more traditional seeds or starter plants. But Bulbs and Rhizomes, more expensive than seeds, are actually just like buying starter plants for less money. Everything they need to grow a flower and leaves is stored inside. They only need someplace to grow, water, and light. How easy is that?
Fully Contained
Bulbs, Rhizomes and Tubers take all of the nutrients they collect throughout the growing season and store it in a large overgrown root. They use the stored nutrients to create flowers and leaves the following growing season. As long as the root is alive and healthy, it will produce the same results year after year. So, if you buy a bag of Bulbs, you are capitalizing on all the work the commercial grower did the previous growing season the first year you plant it. Flowers in a root. Awesome.
Low Maintenance
If you want them to last more than a season or two, a shot of compost in early Spring before they start to grow and a sprinkle of fertilizer after they bloom is pretty much the extent of our maintenance. We also like to cut dead flower stalks, remove dead stuff in general, and weeds. Pretty basic garden maintenance, but you don’t have to.
You can allow the plants to mulch in place and use weed barrier mat to cut down on weeds. Removing flower stalks keeps you from having bulbs all over the area, leave them alone if you want them to spread. We prefer to have bulb division by removing the flower stalks after the blooms die instead of them dropping new plants wherever they want.
There are bulbs out in Our Garden decades old. If they are happy, they divide and create more bulbs. If they are unhappy, they won’t bloom or produce small sparse leaves. Rot is usually the killer of Bulbs and Rhizomes especially for bulbs that don’t grow in our zone, but if they dry out completely, it can also kill them. Cold is either a necessity or a killer, depending on the variety.
Varieties
There are so many different types and varieties of Bulbs and Rhizomes. Flowers in all shapes and colors for sure, but also the leaves. The green parts come in giants like the Florida Blue Flag Irises which are close to 4 feet tall in our Sell Circle and small varieties like the 4 inch Yellow Daylilies. Even veggies such as onion and garlic are bulbs.
Because the selection is so big, you can easily fit them into your spaces. Plant a line of bulbs along the back fence for some screening, or drop a Rhizome disk of Daylilies to take over a small area. The possibilities are only limited by the time you’re willing to shop for them. Go ahead, put ‘Spring Bulbs’ into Amazon and prepare to be amazed. You can get 10 to 50 bulbs for between $15 and $30.
Bulbs and Rhizomes
Bulbs are usually a round, teardrop shape with the leaves and flower stalk(s) coming out the top. Their roots sort of resemble an octopus with tentacles coming out from the bottom center in every direction. When dry, they just look like a dry hairy end. Rhizomes are long hard cylinders or disks of multiple roots that grow perpendicular, that’s in the same line, not straight down, just under the ground. They send up stalks and leaves all along the cylinder or disk at different locations. So, a single Rhizome will look like multiple plants in different areas as it grows.
Finding Your Zone is the Key
Picking Bulbs and Rhizomes to plant for your Growing Zone is key. If you’re looking for something low maintenance that will last, plant to your zone. We grow Amaryllis Bulbs in our Zone 10 that come back without any issues, but the common daffodils that grew beautifully in my college front yard all spring and summer, Zone 7, die. They need a dormant period we can’t mimic anywhere here in the Tropical Zones except the fridge. If we leave them in the ground, they never bloom again and usually rot during the rainy season. Dang. But for a single season, we can have almost anything that comes in a bulb. We just have to buy the bulbs new.
Water Lovers
More than just some plants liking a ton of water, like broccoli, some bulbs require a wet period especially here in the Tropical Zones. Some Bulbs and Rhizomes like the Streamside Spider Lilies and White African Irises live at water edges. The areas flood in the rainy seasons and dry out for winter. It’s part of their natural growing cycle, and they need it to bloom. However, I have these growing next to irrigation heads, and I’ve had zero problems with growing or blooms. In fact, I have to remove some new growth every year. Know whether the Bulbs or Rhizomes you want to plant require a wet season and plant to their tastes.
Creating Impact
After you’ve decided on some varieties, it’s easy to create big impacts or small pockets of color with Bulbs and Rhizomes. Varieties with large bushy leaves can create height next to walls and houses with smaller varieties planted in front. Go crazy and choose varieties that bloom at different times and have color there throughout your growing season. Line walks for a pretty bloom in spring and greenery throughout the summer. A circle of blooming Bulbs around a tree is quite lovely and keeps the grass from creeping up on the tree.
Our Garden
There are Bulbs and Rhizomes planted all over Our Garden, and we have an actual designated Bulb and Rhizome garden. It’s not surprising, a ton of tropical plants are Rhizomes or something similar. Roots are shallow in our sandy soil and rhizomes do well. Tropical bulbs take over. We have pots and beds filled and scattered with them. There are also just areas of impact, squares or circles of pretty. I did mention these were easy, low maintenance plants. Of course we have them all over.
Bulb and Rhizome Garden
The ‘Bulb Garden’ started out as part of the fountain, water ran from the square side into the round side. My Mom had issues with leaking in the square portion and cleaning all of it became a chore. The square side took on many forms before it settled on ‘Bulb Garden’. There was shell, vegetables, strawberries, and finally bulbs. It is a good area for them as the flowers always look lovely next to the fountain, and it’s the view coming in from the pool. You never miss the blooms. Lovely.
The Bulb Garden is a brick Container, meaning it is not open on the bottom. There are drainage holes drilled in the bottom sides, but it’s a closed container filled with Black Cow, a commercial compost. The soil in the container has a slightly muddy quality. It never dries out, but it never has standing water either. It’s damp, not wet, mud, always, no matter the time of year. It gets sprinkled once a day if the White African Irises don’t block the sprinkler head. The goal was to mimic a wetland area without the seasonal standing water. It worked pretty well and the Bulbs and Rhizomes love it. The Spider Lilies have tried to take over the bed twice and had to be removed. Yup, wetland quality.
Our Plan
There are several varieties in the Bulb Garden. The south side is mostly the Florida Blue Flag Irises, the Orange Tiger Lily has the NW corner, a mix of Gladiolus colors in the center, two Yellow Daylily areas on each side, and Pink Bulbs, probably a hundred of them, scattered throughout. Seriously, there are a ton of these little bulbs. The Pink Bulbs bloom throughout the year, the Irises in Feb-March, both the Tiger Lilies and Daylilies in April-May. Gladiolus in May-June, hopefully. The Plan was a continuously blooming bed. It’s close to that with the Dragon Fruit cactus along the fence behind it blooming throughout the rainy season.
Your Plan
Sky is the limit Growers. Planting multiple types of Bulbs and Rhizomes in a single area that bloom at the same time can be a show stopper. One that comes back year after year. Try one in your front yard. Or make a Big Orange Impact at your front door with some Tiger Lilies. The good news is new bulbs, right from a commercial grower, usually come up and bloom the 1st year even if you kill them after. I’ve purchased numerous bulbs for a single season I know won’t survive here. The trick is knowing that up front. It’s not so disappointing when they die. I love daffodils and tulips.
Planting Bulbs and Rhizomes
Sinking Bulbs and Rhizomes is easy. They usually come bare root with few or no green shoots. Both Bulbs and Rhizomes are planted in a hole or trough underground with any green shoots above the soil.
Check your planting depth, all plants have a preference. If you’re Growing Tropical, you’ll want to float most bulbs with ⅓ of the bulb above ground, particularly Amaryllis Bulbs. For more on planting Amaryllis Bulbs, See: How to Repot Amaryllis Bulbs Otherwise, follow the instructions.
Most Bulbs are planted on a mound inside the hole to better spread the roots evenly inside the hole. The hole is then filled around the Bulb and roots. Mulch, Mulch, Mulch and water well.
Rhizome roots are generally planted in a trough. You want to place the cylinder horizontally under soil with the main root pointing slightly down. You’re probably going to get shoots and leaves all along the cylinder, make sure it’s planted where you want the plants.
Rhizome disks are planted at the soil line. It’s very distinct where the roots meet the shoots. Since it is disk shaped, I just dig a big hole, place the disk and backfill around it. Mulch and water. For more on planting Bulbs and Rhizomes See: How to Choose Between Seeds and Starter Plants
Go For Bulbs
Try planting Bulbs or Rhizomes, just try it. You’ll wonder why you hadn’t tried this growing hack sooner.
