Tuesday 21 October 2008

Planting crocus and alliums

Today we planted bulbs in the barrier troughs which contain drought tolerant alpine plants and succulents. We planted about 50 alliums and 350 crocus in total in the 7 troughs and the 2 containers by the park entrance.

The crocus varieties we chose are 'Barr's Purple' and 'Snowbunting', which are purple and white respectively (as you probably guessed from the names!) These will flower in February. The alliums we chose are a small species, allium azureum, which gets pale blue flowers in early summer.

The barrier troughs were planted up with alpines and succulents as an experiment to see if we could find a greener way of planting up containers. Usually the troughs contain bedding plants, which are bad for the environment due to the amount of water they require and the fact they have to be replaced every season. It also makes them very expensive; to have just one trough planted and watered by the council for just the summer would cost £100. By using alpines they cost us just under £20 each to plant up, nothing for water, and they will last for many years.

Due to the huge amount of rain the plants weren't quite as happy as they could have been! However, they have still lasted well and will look even better next year, especially now we have added some bulbs.

2 comments:

Andrea said...

It is worth mentioning that the barrier troughs with bedding did look splendid and received lots of comments. We have to accept that although we are saving money by planting the drought tolerant plants, we are loosing a bit of impact and wow factor.
We still need to cater for a diverse display which will always include summer and spring bedding. It is the watering we need to try and address and we are certainly working towards this with the self watering kits on the leisure centre and hopefully on the town hall next year! Andrea

Kathy said...

I don't have any pictures of the bedding plants in full bloom I don't think. I put up the ones when they were newly planted but I don't have any of them once they really got going.

Hopefully the drought tolerant troughs will look much better next year, they didn't enjoy the huge amounts of rain. They should perk up in spring. Some will have to be replaced by tougher species if they don't. There should be hundreds of crocus in bloom early February at least.

The amount of money saved is absolutely huge. Each trough cost around £21.50 to plant including bulbs and will last for years. The troughs bedding plants cost around £50 each just for one summer.

Although the automatic watering systems will save money they will still be just as terrible for the environment.