Hole Depth for Perennial Bulbs

Video Transcript

"All right, I've got my trusty shovel and now that I've decided where I'm going to plant the bulbs, I'm going to dig a hole. But the question is, what size hole? The elephant ear -- I've got the little tag that came right off of it. The elephant ear says it needs to be planted 1 - 3 inches under the soil. And that means that this bulb that I'm going to put in the ground here like this, because this is where the roots came off and this is where the plant is going to come out. It needs to be 1 - 3 inches under the soil, so I'm digging a hole. This thing's got to be 6 inches long, so I'm digging a hole that's about 8 inches deep. But I'm going to dig a hole that's much larger than the bulb, because I intend to amend the soil in a pretty major way, and actually add back potting soil and top soil and manure, along with a little fertilizer in order to make what I would consider a better growing environment than the soil that I have here. You can see that the soil is plenty hard, even though it's got pretty good moisture in it. And digging a hole bigger, and giving that plant a good set of features it can use to grow, is better than trying to expect poor bulbs to get generate a beautiful plant and with nothing to grow on."