Amy Draiss
With the sounds of fall crunching and crisping around the edges of your garden, it’s hard not to feel wistful, even as you gaze at the ornamental splashes of color spilling over from one season to the next. While autumnal colors can add some seasonal brilliance, it’s understandable to feel at a loose end, wondering what to do next in your garden. Hopefully, you can occupy yourself with targeted pruning, yard tidyups and shed clearouts – but as things start to wind down, why not do something truly life affirming and invigorating – and plant some spring bulbs?
There are plenty of gorgeous bulbs to plant in September, and planting now is great for the health and development of several key spring bloomers. Starting your spring bulb garden early means you can take advantage of a mass of tempting choices via reputable bulb retailers – plus, you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you’ve started your new year gardening campaign in earnest, in a relaxed and optimistic way. So have fun planting some of these gorgeous spring flowering bulbs while you have plenty of time on your side – and give yourself something to really look forward to in the new year!
Take the grunt work out of bulb planting with the Berry & Bird Garden Bulb Planter from Amazon – perfect for speeding up bulk plantings in a comfortable fashion.
Best Spring Bulbs to Plant in September
Selecting the best bulbs to plant in September will depend on a combination of factors, including an awareness of your USDA region and an understanding of your garden soil, as well as bulb preferences. Indeed, these factors will have some bearing on bulb choices – although hopefully you’ll still have plenty of options!
To help when adding bulbs to your flower garden for spring, make sure you have first checked your soil and made any adjustments necessary to nourish and prepare the earth. Test the soil using a meter like the Raintrip 4-in-1 Meter from Amazon, which tests for pH, nutrient loads and moisture. Condition the planting site with a treatment like Miracle-Gro’s Performance Organics All-Purpose In-Ground soil amendment from Walmart.
Getting on top of this ahead of planting and growing will mean bulbs develop in optimum condition. Then you can get stuck in with planting some of these delightful beauties in readiness for spring.
1. Muscari
These little purple-blue beauties (also known as grape hyacinth) have a relatively broad planting window, but early planting is highly beneficial for establishing healthy roots. As well as being some of the best flower bulbs to plant in September, the bulbs themselves are generally small in size, so you can get away with planting them a few inches deep. It’s best to plant groups of bulbs so each one has a few inches of surrounding space. Muscari bulbs also thrive in containers – just ensure they are well draining and kept in sun or partial shade.
With their tightly packed clusters of grape-shaped blooms, I often call them my little Marge Simpsons, as the flowers remind me of the blue-rinse hairdo associated with Matt Groening’s well-loved matriarch. These charming little spring ornamentals are highly likely to naturalize in your garden, returning yearly in new corners of your garden. Grab Muscari ‘Baby’s Breath’ from Amazon in bundles of 50 bulbs. You can also get unusual new colors, like white ‘Album’ and yellow ‘Golden Fragrance’.
2. Alliums
From delicate fluffy dwarf purple varieties like ‘Millenium’ to audacious mammoths like ‘White Giant’, there’s something fundamentally spectacular about a spring border blessed with a generous smattering of flowering alliums. Ornamental onions can flower from spring to early summer, but as long as you focus on the earliest flowering allium varieties, these are some of the most glorious spring bulbs to plant in September.
Ideal for planting in USDA zones 4-10, these sweeping structural epics thrive in full sun and well-draining, slightly acidic soil, so bear this in mind when planting these delightful hardy perennials. Gorgeous allium bulbs to start in September include ‘Globemaster’, ‘Giganteum’, ‘Christophii’ and ‘Purple Sensation’ alliums. You can buy some exquisite and richly varied allium bulb varieties at Burpee.
3. Crocus
Surely one of the most life-affirming sights of spring, the humble crocus reassures us that the new gardening year (and all its flowering joys) is just beginning. Obviously, you need to focus on spring-flowering crocus varieties, as you can also get autumn-flowering crocus bulbs. Make sure the planting holes are around 6 inches (15cm) deep and 4 inches (10cm) apart, although you can expect these perennial charmers to naturalize and return in quiet new corners of your yard.
Bulbs benefit from around 15 weeks of chilling, allowing them to fully benefit from the cold months ahead of a rich early spring medley. Plant in sweeps along the edges of lawns and garden beds, and feel free to mix up your varieties for a cacophony of uplifting color. One of the most charming crocus varieties for September planting is Crocus ‘Saffron’, available from Walmart, with its lush lavender petals and golden stamens.
4. Daffodil (Narcissus )
When trying to decide which bulbs to plant in September, one of the first to spring to mind (pun not intended) will surely be the daffodil. The subject of one of William Wordsworth’s most memorable lines, thoughts of spring are intertwined with bobbing heads of gentle, unassuming narcissi. Look for early flowering varieties that bloom in February or March, and remember to plant at three times the depth of the individual bulbs.
You hopefully won’t struggle to find traditional gold daffodil varieties to start in September, although there are some interesting modern twists that are equally delightful for spring borders and containers. If you’re intrigued by frilly or double bloom narcissus varieties, you’ll love Narcissus Double Mix from Amazon, with its symphony of gold, cream, pink and orange ruffled trumpets.
5. Early Anemone
With their delicate daisy shapes and generous carpet growth, spring-flowering anemones make highly engaging bulbs to start off in September. This is a wide flowering group, but Grecian windflower (Anemone blanda) and poppy (A. coronaria) anemone varieties are ideal for planting this month. This will depend, again, on your hardiness zone. Planting in September is particularly effective for anemone lovers in zones 7-10. Buy Anemone Windflower bulbs from Amazon for a visual flourish of pink, blue and white petals.
6. Galanthus
Snowdrops are some of the first spring flowers to peep their heads out of the earth in the new year (and if you’re lucky, you may even see them before winter is out, nestling under a gentle frosting of snow). Because they are early starters, it makes sense to plant snowdrop (galanthus) bulbs as early as possible. This way, they can take advantage of the warmer soil, and they have ample time to build up those all important energy reserves.
To give your snowdrops the best chance of success, find a shady (or partially shady) spot with moist (but not waterlogged soil). They do especially well under a large tree, but can also flourish with lawn plantings and large containers. I’m especially fond of varieties like ‘Wendy’s Gold’ with their intriguing golden markings, but you can’t go wrong with the lush bobbing heads of Willard & May Galanthus Nivalis from Amazon.
7. Fritillaria
Fritillary bulbs are some of my favorite spring flowers, bringing something a little intriguing and quirky to an ornamental display. Depending on the variety and growing region, you can enjoy their gorgeous delicate colors from March until May. September is the perfect time to start Fritillaria meleagris (snake’s head), F. imperialis (crown imperials) and F. affinis (chocolate lily) so bulbs can take full advantage of the soil still being relatively warm. Planting in September means fritillaria roots have plenty of time to establish before spring.
These bulbs aren’t big fans of compacted soil, so work the soil before planting to ensure it is well drained, or plant in large containers or raised beds. Add a layer of sand or grit at the time of planting to help with soil drainage. Snake’s head fritillaria can naturalize on lawns for more delightful spring color. Purple and burgundy blooms are especially popular, but you can also get unique yellow flower varieties like ‘Lutea’ fritillaries. For something unusual and vibrant in your spring borders, try vibrant Fritillaria Imperialis ‘Rubra’ from Nature Hills.
But Don’t Plant This Bulb Yet!
Although the warm soils of September work to the advantage of these bulbs, there is one type of bulb that will suffer from planting too early in the fall. You may well be tempted to plant some tulips – but it’s important to hold off with these for a while.
Planting too early, while the soil is still warm, can expose tulip bulbs to the risk of fungal disease – specifically, a disease known as tulip fire (Botrytis tulipae). This can cause distortion, stunting and rotting, ultimately preventing bulbs from flowering. So September planting would be a mistake – it’s far better for the health and potential of tulips to wait until October or November (depending on your region), so the ground can reach an adequate level of cold sufficient to protect bulbs from disease.
Still, while it’s best to hold off actually planting them, you can absolutely buy some now if you haven’t already. In fact, buying them as soon as possible is a good idea if you want to grab something unusual or unique. There are some gorgeous tulip bulbs available at Burpee – including rich purple ‘Paul Scherer’, fluffy pink and white ‘Double Shake’, and intriguing tulip combo ‘Queen of Night’ and ‘Don Quichotte’, amongst others.
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