The 5-point plan for planting fall bulbs that turn into a designer spring garden

SALT LAKE CITY — Most of us buy bulbs because the picture on the package is pretty. But do you want your spring garden to look designed?

Enhancement designer and horticulturist Jessica Berrett shared five things to consider if you want that designer-worthy garden.

Placement

Plant your bulbs in intentional clusters instead of spreading them individually throughout the yard.

"I always recommend placing bulbs in groups or drifts," Berrett said. "Putting the individual groups of colors near each other helps give you that kind of designed look."

Groups of five or seven flowers create a more pleasing visual. Too many different flowers scattered everywhere can just look messy.

"It kind of just looks like noise," Berrett noted. "It's chaos."

Repetition

Once you find a bulb variety you love, don't put it in just one spot.

"I recommend definitely using the same varieties in different areas of your garden," Berrett explained.

Repeating flowers in different garden beds helps tie your landscape together. It doesn't have a cohesive, pleasing to the eye feel when every area has completely different flowers. Use the same varieties in several places for consistency.

Color

Berrett recommended sticking to a color palette.

"I do recommend that you narrow it down to two or three colors," she said.

There is still room to have fun within those colors using different shades and varieties. Limiting the palette keeps your garden from feeling overly chaotic.

"Just sticking to that palette is gonna really help your yard feel like it's not crazy chaos," Berrett explained.

She shared one color combo that is always timeless.

"A lot of people mix white with purple," she said. "That is very popular for kind of that classic look."

Timing

Paying attention to timing will make your spring color last longer.

"When you go to buy bulbs, on the packaging, it actually tells you when the bulb is going to bloom during the spring," Berrett explained.

Labels will say early-, mid- or late-spring bloomers. When you combine varieties from each category, you can enjoy your flowers for a lot longer.

"If you wanna have flowers going for as long as possible, you wanna plant some of the early, some of the mid and even some of the late," Berrett said.

Even better, you can stick to your same palette while extending the color. Different pink bulbs, for example, can bloom weeks apart while keeping your garden color consistent.

The Disappearing Act

Bulb foliage needs time to die back naturally, but the leaves aren't necessarily pretty. Berrett said to plan ahead.

"If you're planting bulbs in an area where you want them to return year after year, plant them around other perennials," she explained. "As the leaves die down, they're not very pretty. But your other plants then are gonna be growing, and they'll kind of hide those."

Think of bulbs as one layer in a larger landscape. The flowers bring the spring color and neighboring perennials help carry the garden through the rest of the season.

Find more garden inspiration from Jessica Berrett on Instagram, @plant.geek.

This story originally aired on KSL TV and has been reformatted for a digital audience using artificial intelligence.