Wow. That will be an amazing sight!! I planted 60 daffodils last fall in the grass around my apple tree and it was a beautiful spring with their smiling faces! This year I bought some allium to add to other areas if the garden.

I know we always want what we know we can't have, but I so envy you your bulbs, Camp. We are very limited here on bulbs: amaryllis, crynum, caladium, and not much more. We're supposed to be able to grow tiger lilies here, but I've never had success. I hope your woodland is eye poppingly beautiful come spring.

My mind is boggling about 2,300 bulbs - if I get another 200 each Spring, I have trouble finding space for them. Of course, you do not have that problem!

floridarose - re tiger lillies - isn't it irritating that some bulbs or plants just will not grow when planted, but then show up beside of the road or in a vacant lot, happy as can be? Tiger lillies are abundant along the road up in the mountains (not too high - about 3500 ft) where we have a cabin. They tend to appear in profusion right where the little streams are coming down the hill to join the creek, where it is shady, & moist. I love them, so I just enjoy them up there each Spring.

Jackie

Why is that, Florida? Is it the famous Florida nematodes? There are surely a plethora of bulbs and corms which grow well in more tropical situations (many of them South African) and a number of them South American. Babiana, zephyranthes, gladioli species, tropolaeum, bessera, ranunculus, homeria, dahlia, zantedeschia, crinum, moraea (sp?) dierama, tritonia come to mind.....even some narcissi, especially the jonguils and triandrus types. I have tried (and often failed)with quite a number of these myself, returning over and over to the gorgeous species gladioli and dierama. Corms, bulbs and tubers are, to my mind, the gardener's friends - reliable, easy, cheerful........and because I always forget what I planted, a terrific surprise every spring and summer -although there are not many worse feelings than slicing a spade through a fat and promising bulb you had forgotten was there.

I should mention that I buy bulbs wholesale and always have. Buying in quantity offers astounding value - my order cost me 200 pounds (maybe around 280dollars) and the cost was hiked up by 25 crown imperials, at 1.45 pounds (2 dollars) each - although I am definitely looking forward to a stand of huge yellow frits.
Planting at around 50 per square metre, the coverage is only 45 square metres.....so not so dramatic....but I am going to split them into 3 areas so they can hopefully colonise a larger area over time.
My teapot money will stretch to a few nut trees and yet another attempt at raspberries.

Oooo, Camp, I can't wait to see pictures of all those bulbs in bloom!!! I buy new ones every year and plunk them in the ground. I've got quite a collection of tulips, daffs, and crocus now. Will be adding more this fall too but I've never done 2000, lol!

And here I was stressing on planting a small sack full!

I would love to see your spring show of bulbs, I hope you take lots of photos.

I think mine will be limited to a small area for this year. Besides, I kind of need to mark where I have them so I quit digging them up on accident

I forgot about glads. They do well here. It's a double whammy, Camp, of not enough chill and rotting during the summer months due to heat and humidity. Narcissi and dahlia will last a year or two here if I'm lucky, but then disappear. Crynum was on my list that will grow here. I can do dwarf dahlia from seed, and they will bloom the first year, and may or may not be there the next year.

Floridarosez,

What about the African bulbs like Haemanthus and Sprekelia from South America. African bulbs come in two types, winter rainfall and summer rainfall and apparently the bulbs that work in one region won't work in the other. Maybe one type could work for you. Here's hoping.

Cath

The autumn after my DH passed away, some of the members of my rose society came out and spent the afternoon planting daffodils all over my field and hillside. They wandered the paths I had cut in the weeds and grasses planting as they went, and also plopped some here and there in unexpected places, like underneath an ancient apple tree, or behind a large rock. The effect the following spring when seen from any window in the back of my house (especially my kitchen window) was a broken trail of cheering yellow popping up all over. I don't know exactly how many bulbs they planted, but it had to be close to 1000 I would guess, and of many different types so that the blooming is spread over many weeks. I've tried several springs now to capture it in a photograph but the scope is just too large and it doesn't show up well on film with my cheap camera...but in person, it is such a beautiful sight. And the best part is that the wildlife leaves them alone so they are now multiplying. Even though I have moved away, my son and family live there so I get to come back and "visit" my daffies every spring. I feel so blessed.
What a wonderful thing you and your family are creating, Campanula! And what a joy you will have to look forward to throughout the dreary winter - and for many years to come!

Oh, Annececilia, you have precisely nailed the specialness (terrible grammar, I know) as it truly has become something of a family endeavour. Although the wood means different things to all of us, it has bonded us together better than any single thing I could have imagined. The youngest, Tas, has bought a second-hand cargo net to string between trees and is already planning ziplines, ropeladders and platforms. Naomi, my middle daughter, lives nearest the wood and is deeply involved, along with her daughter Phoebe Rosa, (our grand-daughter), making themselves a tipi to stay in (and scavenging timber for a tree-house) while my eldest. Rowan, already a committed gardener, has invested in many green woodworking tools and he, and my sweetheart, Reuben, have made a sawhorse (Champion, the lumber horse) and a pole-lathe with plans afoot to make charcoal, coppicing and other woodsy things.

When we have children, I guess we start to think in a longer term than the next week or so and even the idea of 'legacy' has been sneaking into my thinking. Obviously, we have nothing to leave them with apart from their wits and even if we had money and property, I have seen families torn apart by the very things that had been meant to protect them......but a bit of woodland, too small for much and not saleable in parts (by covenant) really is something quite remarkable to sustain our family. Neither Reuben nor I have much of a family ourselves - I was adopted and Reuben's family are no longer alive......so our little dynasty starts with us, really. To to have this project, glueing us all together, is infinitely precious to me.

I loved your story of remembrance daffoldils - such a special act of thoughtfulness which resonates every new season - what better celebration of life could we hope for?

Camp, that is such a sweet post. How wonderful for your family.

Cath, you know, the summer rain bulbs might work here. I frankly just gave up on bulbs when so many I tried failed and have not pursued it in recent years. The other thing I forgot to mention is the lubber grasshoppers here. They eat anything bulb related, including any of the bulb itself that's above the surface of he dirt. Once having the top of it eaten, the bulb generally rots and dies.

Ah yes, the chomping beasties - I confess, this was a concern to me too (although nothing seems to like narcissi)....and I had to do the pots with protection thing (I used those old wire hanging baskets and various mesh things). However, the good thing about many bulbs is their willingness to endure pot culture - handy on many levels since once the plants are past their best, the pots can often be stacked somewhere discreet, even rolled over on their sides and stowed under a bench. Lilies, for example, look fabulous for a few weeks then there are weeks and weeks of skanky foliage to endure....but stashing a pot out of sight (I have used the downstairs outside lavatory as well as shoving pots behind other pots) is a neat way of making the most of limited space.

OK camp - next Spring we want lots & lots of pictures! So lovely that all of your family is participating and doing their own projects.

That is a good point about South African bulbs - I have tried some of the winter rainfall ones here (sparaxis and iaxa and species gladioli, and several more I can't remember the names of), and they love it, and to my amazement they come back, unlike the big daffodils and tulips. The only thing I have to be careful about is not to irrigate them too much in the Summer - they really like our normal climate dry summers (although this year has gotten ridiculous - the last material rain we had was last Jan, and even with "normal" behavior we won't get any now until late Oct/ early Nov).

Those and some of the narcissi (the smaller, more delicate ones) and wild tulips do well here and come back. The deer don't eat them or the South African ones either, which is great. And they confuse my neighbors!

Jackie

I second (third?) (fourth?) the idea that you post pictures next spring. To me, there is nothing more optimistic than planting bulbs in the fall for a show in spring.

Camp and Annacecilia how wonderful and inspiring. We bought some bulbs today, only 150 tulips, and 90 daffodils.
We just slowly plug away. There is something thrilling about the emergence of bulbs in the spring.