Beacons of spring

As we leave summer behind, it's time to plan ahead, says Monty - and guarantee early colour in late winter and all spring by planting bulbs. Follow his guide to starting now for best results

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September moves summer gently into autumn. The destination into winter may not be where you want to go, but the journey is always a joy. It is a month of calm, tinged with loss, and that gentle sadness simply intensifies the preciousness of the present moment.

Bulb planting begins in earnest in September but continues busily into October with the one exception of tulips, which wait until November and even December for their planting. Increasingly, I grow bulbs in containers, which means that we are accumulating more and more pots, and the one rule of a good pot is that it must be filled with something most of the time. So scillas, muscari, narcissi, hyacinths, irises and fritillaries are planted in gritty compost, along with pans of winter-flowering pansies and violas.

The larger pots see double or even triple service throughout the year, so bulbs are planted shallowly, often in big pans, and then removed after flowering and planted out to die back slowly so the pots can be replanted with a summer display. But as autumn progresses, it is the prospect of these displays of intense bulbs next February and March that sits quietly in these seemingly empty, grit-covered pots.

Early colour

You don't need big, expensive containers to fill your midwinter garden with colour. Small pots, ranging from those roomy enough for a dozen small bulbs to a tiny one holding just a single snowdrop, look great both singly and in groups. I increasingly use terracotta alpine pans for bulbs and keep them in a cold frame, open at the sides but covered on top to protect them from waterlogging. I bring them into the greenhouse in relays to stir them into flower, from the end of January through to mid-March.