Fall Bulb Design: Easy, Colorful Combinations

Fall-planted bulbs are some of the easiest ways to add impactful colour to your spring garden. As long as you get an extended period of frozen ground (2 or more months), varieties like Tulips, Daffodils, Allium, Crocus, and more will thrive in your garden and offer up incomparable color in the early season landscape. On top of being extremely easy to grow, these bulbs are also extremely easy to design with.

The key is to pair varieties that bloom at the same time and try to have a combination in bloom from early spring all the way until your favorite plants take over. We’ve put together some of our favourite combinations for fall planting and show you exactly how to recreate the look in your garden.

FALL BULB DESIGN: SIMPLICITY WITH TULIPS

If you’re looking to add cheerful, easy color to your garden, there are so many varieties of Tulips that you can achieve an expertly-designed look simply with Tulip bulbs. Pair early, mid, and late season varieties together to compliment your color scheme and style. Here are some of our favorite Tulip examples:

Red Oxford & Golden Oxford Tulips – Mid Spring Blooms

You can achieve the look in this photo by planting 25-50 bulbs of each variety (Red Oxford and Golden Oxford Tulips) in your garden. Make sure to mix the bulbs up before planting so you have a nice compilation of red and yellow throughout the garden.

Double Late Tulips – Late Spring Blooms

As you can see this is a completely different look than above, but all done with Tulips! Pair two double late Tulip varieties together for an elegant, cottage-garden charm feeling. Or, plant our Double Late Tulip Mix for an easy way to get this look without having to design it yourself. You can achieve the look in this photo by planting 25-35 bulbs in your garden.

FALL BULB DESIGN: TULIPS, DAFFODILS, & HYACINTHS

If you’re looking for a more versatile and colorful look in your spring garden, pair early-blooming Tulips and Daffodils with fragrant Hyacinths. Again, there are so many varieties to choose from the sky is the limit and you can play around with height, color, and more. Here are some of our favorite examples:

Darwin Tulips, Miniature Daffodils, & Grape Hyacinths – Early/Mid Spring Blooms

This gardener planted en masse and created color blocking with the different varieties. You can achieve this pristine look with 50-100 bulbs of each variety, or mix them all together for a more wild look, like below:

Lily Flowered Tulips, Parrot Tulips, & Blue Jack Hyacinths – Mid Spring Blooms

This fantastic orange/blue combination is easily re-created with Blue Jacket Hyacinths, any Lily-Flowered Tulips and Parrot Tulips. The texture of both the Tulip petals and Hyacinths make for a fantastic mid spring showing. Achieve this look with about 12 each of the Lily Flowered and Parrot Tulips and about 25 Blue Jacket Hyacinths.

Miniature Daffodils & Grape Hyacinths – Early Spring Blooms

This is a favorite combination of ours and an instant way to turn your early spring garden into a showpiece. Both the Grape Hyacinths and most Miniature Daffodils are fragrant, making for a total sensory experience. Get this look with 25 of each type of bulbs, or plant our Woodland Mix for an easy way to achieve this combination in your spring garden.

FALL BULB DESIGN: TULIPS & DAFFODILS

One of the most iconic spring garden looks is done by pairing Tulips and Daffodils together. You can have fun with different colors, textures, and heights with the dozens of varieties available out there. Here are some of our favorite ways to combine these two classic varieties for a unique spring garden:

Lily Flowered Tulips, Darwin Tulips & Daffodils – Mid Spring Blooms

As you can see with this bold, colorful, and natural planting, you can create an entire garden bed with just Tulips and Daffodils and make it look interesting. This gardener played with bold colors and combined Lily Flowered Tulips, Darwin Tulips, and Jetfire Miniature Daffodils to create this look. Depending on the size of your garden, you could recreate this look with as little as one bag each of these varieties, up to as many as you’d like.

Double Daffodils, Darwin Tulips & Crown Imperial – Mid Spring Blooms

By adding a unique variety like Crown Imperial to your Tulip and Daffodil planting, you can elevate the look and whimsy of your garden bed. This gardener used Double Daffodils, Darwin Tulips and Crown Imperial to achieve this colorful look. Although this garden is planted en masse, you can create the same look with one bag each of these varieties.

FALL BULB DESIGN: ALLIUM

Allium is a later-blooming Fall-Planted bulb, meaning it looks great paired with perennials like Bearded Iris, Poppies, and more, but also looks fantastic planted in clumps on its own. We recommend planting 12 or more bulbs in one spot to create a whimsical, easy look in the early summer garden.

FALL BULB DESIGN: HAVE FUN!

We like to say that Fall Bulbs are as easy as “Dig, Drop, Done,” which means that you can put the extra time into really planning your design. The actual planting won’t take more than an afternoon so have fun creating a spring garden that represents you and your favorite colors.