small bulbs

Watering is one of my worst jobs. I've been procrastinating with all my pots and vases until this morning when I've managed to catch up with the task. Most hyacinth vases don't need much topping up - the bulb seems to act as a plug preventing evaporation but the smaller bulbs (crocus and tulip) don't always fit so well and are prone to needing more regular topping up. With this many pots and vases it's a bit overwhelming!

These crocus are actually from potted crocus I bought. I would have more but I left them outside while repotting them and forgot about the squirrels. Of course they ate them all before I remembered to go and rescue them.

I've had a disaster with the small bulbs. The squirrels got into the cellar and decimated them. Here are the vases from October 19th  and most of them are empty.

The bulbs that survived do have decent roots on them.

I had a few spare small bulbs which I was going to plant in these rose bowls, maybe with glass nuggets, but now I will put them in the now empty vases.

An update on the hyacinth bulbs in the bulb bowls, there are masses of roots. If I try to lift the bulbs to check on them they are immovable as there are so many roots. One bulb has some roots growing above the lid. I tried pushing them into the bowl but they just break off. Hyacinth roots can be quite brittle. Best to break off the errant roots so the bulb doesn't waste too much energy on them.

Below are the empty flower troughs. The squirrels had a real feast. I may get some more bulbs to replace them. The boxes of small crocus and tulips from Sainsburys are quite reasonable. It will be too late to get them to bloom for Christmas but would hopefully have blooms sometime in January.

I seem to have a number of mouldy bulbs this year. I usually only have the odd one. I've turned this one over to show how mouldy it is. I rinsed the mould off and put it back. I did notice that it also has damage on the side. I was wondering if the damage caused the mould or vice versa.