Gardening: The 20 best spring bulbs

Elspeth Thompson chooses the bulbs to plant now and enjoy later

For me there is something unfailingly cheering and hopeful about bulb-planting – it even helped me through the death of a muchloved dog one sad October. It can be tiring if large numbers are involved, so alternate the big naturalistic swaths with handfuls of delicate beauties in pots that can be brought inside when coming into bloom – and keep plenty of plant labels, sharpened pencils, hot soup and Radio 3 to hand. As this year's leaves are yellowing and falling to the ground, it's heartening to be lighting the touch-paper of next spring's growth. For, once set beneath their blanket of soil and watered in, these nuggets of concentrated life will be imperceptibly stirring towards their moment of glory in a few months' time.
Best planted indoors, in pots of soil or in glass bowls filled with pebbles and water, with the bases of the bulbs just touching the surface. Their fragrance will fill a room.

How to give your garden autumn impact

Rather than hanging up your trowel this autumn, you could take the opportunity to introduce some fabulous seasonal stunners to your plot.

Right now your garden centre is packed with an amazing array of autumnal bloomers just waiting to be planted. Here’s my choice..

Pretty in pink: Japanese anemones – x hybrida

Perfect for anyone who loves pink or white classic flowers, this herbaceous perennial will produce a fantastic flower-covered clump 3ft or 4ft (90-120cm) tall.

The flowers thrive best in shady, moist soil but will perform well just about anywhere. They also make great cut flowers.

Butterfly magnet: Sedum spectabile

These wonderful fleshy-leaved plants do best in a really sunny and freely drained spot, producing masses of flat flowerheads composed of zillions of dusky pink star-like flowers.

If, like me, you have a heavy soil, they still do well but don’t last quite so many years. This is also a great plant for attracting butterflies, which cover the blooms to feed from their nectar. If you like white flowers, go for iceberg.

Triple whammy: Cyclamen europaeum

This magical plant comes with heart-shaped dark green leaves, each marbled with white patterns, and rich pink flowers with a distinct perfume. It does best in a limey and fairly moist, but not wet, soil in partial shade. They look wonderful growing beneath a large shrub or tree and after a few years will multiply and spread.

Autumn classic: Chrysanthemums

Bedding chrysanths come in a range of classic colours. My favourites are the mahoganies and golds, which make a wonderful addition to the front of a small border or patio pot. Light shade or sun suits them best. Mostly they’re treated as annuals and discarded once winter comes, but if you’ve got a greenhouse you can often keep them for the following year.

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Mellow yellow: Sternbergia lutea – the autumn daffodil

This hardy bulb loves a well-drained alkaline soil and plenty of sun. It will reward you with bright yellow cup-shaped flowers, rather like giant crocuses. It’s great in a rock garden, at the edge of a sunny bed, or planting hole in your patio.

Dizzy daisy: Rudbeckia fulgida – cone flower

These dizzily pretty, bright yellow daisies with their prominent dark brown, raised centres thrive in sun or partial shade.

The variety Goldstrum is one of my favourites but all are great value at this time of year. The shadier the spot, the better they like it and the taller they grow.

Bright things: Dahlias

Red, yellow, orange, white or cream, there’s a dahlia for everyone. They’re easily grown from seed or tubers planted earlier in the year, or you’ll be able to pick plants in flower now in your local garden centre. A sunny spot with a moist soil works best.

Simply stunning: Crocosmias

With their elegant arching flower spikes clad with starry orange, red or golden flowers and sword-like leaves, these flowers are simply irresistible.

A sunny spot that’s well drained yet regularly supplied with water in the drier months makes a perfect site – great in flowerbeds or good-sized pots.

Pippa Greenwood has presented her own series, Growing Science, on Radio 4 for three years and is a regular panelist on the station’s Gardeners’ Question Time. She’s also written many books including Pippa Greenwood’s Gardening Year (Headline, £16.99).

Send us pictures of your garden and your tips, and we’ll print the best ones. Your Life, Daily Mirror, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5AP; email pippagreenwood@mirror.co.uk

Slow Food Nation Victory Garden Stays For Now

That flower and vegetable garden at Civic Center -- the one that will, eventually, allow all of us to eat cake, or whatever -- gets a stay of execution. Since there has been a dubious "outpouring of public support" for the garden since its installation in early July," Mayor Gavin Newsom plans on keeping that garden in front of city hall until root vegetable season. Yay. We guess.

What is the Victory Garden, you ask? Well, it makes people feel good about themselves, for one. Also, the garden, it seems, involves World Wars I & II and something called "food miles." Check it:

About Victory Gardens 2008+ Victory Gardens 2008+ is a program of Garden for the Environment and the City of San Francisco's Department for the Environment. A two-year pilot project to support the transition of backyard, front yard, window boxes, rooftops and unused land into organic food production areas, Victory Gardens 2008+ derives its title from, and build on, the successful nationwide Victory Garden programs of WWI and WWII. Victory Gardens 2008+, however, redefines "Victory" in the pressing context of urban sustainability. "Victory" is growing food at home for increased local food security and reducing the food miles associated with the average American meal.
Anyway, you have until November to see it before the Victory Garden gets raped and pillaged by a horde of Black and Decker Weed Whackers.