Linda, I plant bulbs anywhere among perennials and shrubs. To me, the effect is more pleasing than bulbs planted in blocks or in sentinels. I don't have room to plant them in blocks anyway since my garden is very small. Planting bulbs among perennials freed me from worries about fading leaves. I stopped planting Gladiolus and Dahlia because I had had enough digging them up and storing them for the winter, so I don’t want to spend any time or energy digging up spring bulbs to make room for perennials either. I planted bulbs so that they would bloom in succession from late January/early February through October/November. This is the succession of blubs/corms/tubers in my garden. They do overlap each other somewhat and fill the gaps among perennials. Snowdrops - Eranthis hyemalis - Miniature Iris - Crocus - Miniature Daffodils - Scilla sibirica - Chionodoxa - Puschkinia - Erythronium americanum - Early - Mid - Late blooming Daffodils & Early - Mid - Late blooming Tulips - Muscari - Miniature tulips - Anemone blanda - Fritillaria meleagris - Fritillaria pallida - Allium afflatunense/Globematers/cristophii- Leucojum estivum - Bearded Iris - Lillies (Asiatic/trumpet/tigrinum/speciosum) - Liatris spicata - Licoris squamigera - fall crocus - Colchicum The bulb that gives me the most bangs for the bucks is Allium albopilosum or cristophii. It is so very pretty from the moment it opens up in May. The seed head stays attractive until early winter when the wind blows it away. I took Colston Burrell'a suggestions to heart. He wrote that you could plant thousands of bulbs in your garden among your other plants. So I planted them in layers in any spot I could find among my perennials. What does it mean by planting in layers? It means planting 2 or 3 different kinds of bulbs with the exception of daffodils in the same hole. Most Daffodils multiply readily and form a clump effectively blocking other bulbs to push through, so I don't plant anything else in the same hole. How do I plant bulbs in layers? By planting the largest bulb such as Allium Globemaster at the bottom, filling the hole with some soil, placing a medium size bulb such as tulip in the hole, adding a little soil, planting a small bulb such as Scilla on top, then cover with more soil. Voila! I tried to choose fragrant plants and/or anything that bloom the longest or give me the longest interest in the garden. My favorite tulips are species tulips (very dainty, multiply and come back year after year), Tulip Pink Impression (comes back for 9 yrs. now) Tulip Ballerina (blooms the latest - still blooms when Allium begins to bloom). You can get bulbs the most economically from Van Engelen that sells a large number of each kind of bulbs. http://www.vanengelen.com/ You can get fewer bulbs from Van Englen’s sister company, John Scheepers . http://www.johnscheepers.com/ I get Lilies from The Lily Gardens. http://www.thelilygarden.com/ Tulip Ballerina: Allium cristophii, Rose ‘Tiffany’ and Lamb’s Ear: More Allium cristophii among Lamb’s Ear: One of the many Lilies: Fritillaria meleagris: Leucojum estivum ‘Gravetye Giant’: Erythronium: There are at least a thousand bulbs in this backyard: And many more in the front yard: Happy Bulb Planting this fall. :-)

I can send you some stuff around the yard. Blooms, ground covers with blooms, shade tree starters with fragrant blooms, and other odds and ends I find around the house. Email me.

Thank you, Dave & Floral_UK! Maybe I'll skip foxglove, then. Peppers seemed to tolerate lots of water, but almost did better with less frequent watering last year. I thought bulbs did well with moderate water, also, so I figured I could let the flowers and peppers just do their thing and water when we've had dry weather. I'm in the NE, and the planting box gets full sun, pretty dry soil in that spot, but I've had luck with bush beans and mint in the past, and will mulch when I put in the new plants. For reasons beyond me, haha, the dirt in this box is much drier than the rest of the lawn. There was a cherry blossom tree in there for years, but it was blown away and was filled with weeds for a while. Also, even though it seem dry and sandy, that's where the slugs party at night.

Heaps of them. Most of Irisgals suggestions with iberis, linum grandiflorum,coreopsis, echium vulgare, nigella bucharica, ammi majus, godetia, cosmos, phlox drummondii, phacelia campanularis, nemophila, linaria marrocana, catanache, dianthus, nicotiana affinis, scabious, succisa, stylomecon, centaurea annua, (I went a bit mad for hardy annuals and cutting flowers this year).