The most important part of this, other than the well-drained Soil is selecting your tulips.  Sarah made me a 20% off offer which I thought would be rude to refuse.  I’ve gone for Spring Green, Salmon Impression, Copper Image, Caviar and Amazone. By May/June next year, they should look like this

In order to achieve that look, there was some serious digging and earth moving needed.

This is the tulip patch, the Bulbs have been there three years and it was time to lift all of them.  Having dug them up, I can see why some people simply pull up the whole plant including bulb – much easier.

It turned out I needed more than the wheelbarrow to hold the amount of soil that came out of the bed.

At this stage, the old bulbs have been removed, some had rotted others had bulked up and others had offsets.  I prepped the bed with a bed of grit and a good scoop of FBB and raked it all in.

I set the bulbs in two rows of 7/8 – the joys of odd numbers! making sure that none of the bulbs were touching, they like their personal space.  I’d had the foresight to clean the labels and layout which bulbs were which.

I now know that the permanence of a Sharpie marker is about 18 months, so I’ve taken a photo of the markers for future reference.  Let’s hope I remember I’ve done that…

and finally filled in the bed and covered with mesh to stop the squirrels having a free lunch.

and that’s all there is to it!