Around September last year I determined again, probably after watching Gardeners World on one Friday evening, to have another go at bulb lasagnes.

I do not make actual lasagne for 2 reasons: one, my husband does not eat cheese, two bechemal sauce is a bitch to make, and three (did I say 2? more reasons have come to me) I can eat it deconstructed as spag bol, if I load it with cheese. A la Masterchef.

A bulb lasagne is a bit different. It involves buying a terracota bulb pot (shallower then a normal pot) and layering spring bulbs in it.

I have tried before with little success.

Two years ago all my bulbs were dug up by squirrels. Bastards. I know its ecololgy and all, but grey squirrels are the devil in gardens. Digging up bulbs and eating bird food. This year I bought (at quite large expense) two spring loaded bird seed feeders. I cannot tell you the faintly evil fun I have had watching our resident squirrels attempt to extract seed. Only to have the portals shut under their immmense weight. I once had 2 watching the blue tits gaily feeding away, eyeing up their technique, before failing spectacularly. Mwah, mwah, mwah. 

One all, then.

Last year my bulbs rotted in their pots. Nothing came up. In desperation I dug around in one pot to discover slimy, rotten shells, where once the bulbs had nestled. This was despite adding grit to the potting compost and sitting them in a sheltered spot next to the house all winter. Clearly not sheltered enough. Additionally I may have panicked and watered them during the winter, against advice. I can never remember that advice 4 months in.

This year I was resolved to get this bloody thing to work. Every year Monty has a table full of bulb lasganes, flowering away, looking spectacular and attracting insects.

So I got my grit, bought some bulbs to try to ensure a succession of flowering and got to work. I even topped a couple of pots of with winter flowering pansies.

I put the pots under my north facing covered porch and resisted watering them. Finally remembering that advice.

Some bulbs sprouted very early, in December. I still resisted watering. I then settled in to wait the 5 months before the first ones were due to flower.

Because I was going away for two weeks in mid February, they all decided to start growing earlier than the packets suggested.

I moved the pots to the back step so I could see them from my favourite chair, and so they could get some light.

Surely enough as I went off the daffs and grape hyacinths were getting going. Sods law.

But they were still out when I got home and more shoots are appearing of later flowering narcissi and tulips. I think, I can’t actually remember what is in them…

And this is the best thing about bulb lasagnes, and gardening in general. It is an act of faith. And patience. And delayed gratification. Which is rarer and rarer in our world of immediacy.

It also very often surprises you, especially if, like me, you forget what was planted!

Its a magical pastime.