In early spring, a lot of gardeners discover empty spaces or blank spots among their tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and other blooming bulbs, especially in their garden beds. How can you fill those spaces? Can you do it in spring or should you wait until fall? Here are some answers.

What to do now?

• Transplant daffodils, tulips, crocus, hyacinths, and other spring bulbs that have been forced to bloom, if the ground is not frozen. Forced bulbs are readily available at garden centers about the same time or slightly before when spring bulbs bloom in the garden. Once planted, treat them like any other spring-blooming bulb of its type.
• Plant perennials, if you can dig in the soil.
• Plant cool-season annuals. If you can dig in the ground, plant violas, pansies, dianthus, sweet alyssum, or snapdragons.
• Add a few early spring vegetables among the bulbs by sowing seeds of lettuces, spinach, or microgreens.
• Transplant cold-tolerant edibles, such as kale, mustards, cilantro, culinary sage, or thyme. These transplants are usually available at garden centers beginning in March.
• Add containers of spring annuals, especially if you cannot dig in the soil. Place pots of violas, pansies, and other spring annuals or greens among spring bulbs until you can plant what you want in those spaces.

Photo courtesy Cornell University

Prepare for the future

• Take a photo. If you’re in the Midwest or northern parts of the country, the ground may still be frozen, so filling in those empty spaces now is probably not possible. By taking a photo, you get a good idea where those spaces are in fall, when you can add more bulbs.
• Make a sketch. With a sketch on graph paper, you can record distances between bulbs or perennials, or how far from a shrub or tree do you need to plant more bulbs or perennials.
• A photo or sketch can guide your planting if you want perennials to fill in those spaces. Most perennials can be planted anytime from spring into early fall. As an added bonus, perennials help hide the ripening foliage of the spring bulbs.

© GettyImages

12 Companion Perennials for Spring Bulbs

Sunny gardens:

• Aster
• Black-eyed Susan
• Cheddar pinks
• Daisy
• Daylily
• Hardy geranium

Shady gardens:

• Coral bell
• Epimedium
• Ferns
• Hellebore
• Hosta
• Siberian bugloss

© Carol Michel