Planting Spring Bulbs in Scotland

Get daffodils and most other spring bulbs in during September or October, the earlier the better, and tulips any time up to December. Plant each bulb about three times its own height deep, pointed end up. In a Scottish garden the thing to watch isn't the cold but wet ground: bulbs sitting in it all winter can rot.

When to plant which bulb

Buy firm bulbs with no sign of mould or damage, and plant them soon after they arrive. Bulbs planted late or kept in storage too long may flower poorly.

How deep, and which way up

The rule for most spring bulbs is a hole three times the height of the bulb. Tulips can go a little shallower, at two to three times their height, spaced at least twice their own width apart. Set every bulb with the pointed tip upwards. Don't plant too shallow: the bulb may flower the first year, then stop flowering in the years after. Measure your bulb from base to tip, then plant it with its base at this depth:

In pots you can plant shallower and pack bulbs closer for a fuller display. Bulbs in pots tend to flower less well in their second year, so treat a pot as a one-season show and replace the bulbs each autumn.

Wet ground is the Scottish risk

Most bulbs want sun and free-drainingSoil that lets water pass through quickly rather than pooling, so roots aren't sitting in wet ground after rain. Full definition → soil. Heavy clay stays too wet over winter and the bulbs rot in it, and daffodils in particular shouldn't go into waterlogged ground. That matters most on a wet plot: Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Garden averages about 728mm of rain a year and Tiree, in the Inner Hebrides, about 1,275mm. Choose your best-drained spot, plant in a raised bed, or grow bulbs in pots, where you control the mix. The grit and drainage materials guide covers what to add to a pot or bed, and the Scottish soils page explains how soils vary across the country.

Tulips have a second wet-weather problem, tulip fire. It's a fungus: leaves come up twisted, with brown spots that grow a fuzzy grey mould in damp weather, and the flowers rot. It does most damage in a long, wet spring. Space tulips so air moves between them, pull out any that come up twisted and spotted, and don't plant tulips in the same spot again for at least three years.

Keeping squirrels off

Tulip bulbs and crocus corms are squirrels' favourites. Lay wire netting over a newly planted pot, or plant groups of bulbs in an aquatic planting basket with chicken wire over the top and sink the basket to the right depth. Once the bulbs are growing, squirrels lose interest and the wire can come off. Red squirrels are protected by law in Scotland, and barriers like these keep reds and greys off without harming either. The red squirrels guide has the detail.

Bulbs in grass

Snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils, grape hyacinths, scillas and small tulips will all naturalise in a lawn or rough grass, spreading and coming back each year. Pick a sunny patch you won't need to mow early in the year. Scatter a handful of bulbs and plant each where it lands, no deeper than three times its height. For lots of small bulbs, cut an H in the turf, fold the flaps back, loosen the soil, scatter the bulbs and fold the turf down again.

The catch is mowing. Leave that patch unmown in spring until the bulb leaves have turned yellow, which usually takes about six weeks after flowering, or the bulbs won't build up for next year.

After they flower

Keep bulbs watered while they're growing and for six weeks after flowering, until the leaves start to die down. Give bulbs in pots a high-potassium liquid feed, such as tomato feed, from when the shoots appear. Let the leaves turn yellow and straw-like before cutting them off, usually about six weeks after flowering, and don't knot or tie them up, which can stop the bulb flowering next year.

If you lift tulips, wait until the leaves have died down, dig the bulbs carefully and keep only the healthy, good-sized ones. Leave them on a tray to dry for at least 24 hours, then store them in labelled paper bags somewhere cool and dry until autumn.

Snowdrops: plant them green

Snowdrops are the exception to autumn planting. Dry snowdrop bulbs dry out very easily, so the reliable way is to plant them "in the green", freshly lifted as the leaves die back in late spring, or bought just after flowering while the leaves are still green. They like part shade and moist, well-drained soil with leafmould or compost worked in; making leaf mould covers that. The Scottish Snowdrop Festival is a good chance to see what suits your area before you buy. It runs from late January to mid-March (26 January to 11 March in 2026), with gardens open in Fife, the Lothians, the Highlands, Argyll and the Borders.

Scotland's daffodil heritage

One of the most influential daffodil breeders worked in Moray. Between 1899 and 1942, Major Ian Brodie raised tens of thousands of daffodils in the walled garden at Brodie Castle and named over 180 varieties, many after local places such as Elgin, Dalvey and Findhorn. Around 110 Brodie daffodils are in the National Collection at Brodie Castle, now cared for by the National Trust for Scotland. Fife holds a second heritage collection, the Backhouse daffodils at Rossie, and a collection of pre-1930 daffodils is kept in Ross-shire.

Bluebells: buy native, never dig wild

If you want bluebells, choose the native British bluebell, Hyacinthoides non-scripta, rather than Spanish or hybrid bluebells. Gardeners have worried that the Spanish kind will swamp the native one, and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh tested this with over 2,000 bulbs from the Scottish Borders. Native plants fathered about three times as many seeds as the non-natives, whose pollen was often misshapen, which suggests the native bluebell may hold its own better than feared.

Native bluebells are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, and selling bulbs taken from the wild is an offence. Never dig them up from woods or verges. Buy bulbs sold as cultivated stock.

Common questions

Sources