Organizing my gardens

TJ7933

Hi,

Canadian here.  I hot a bunch or new beds last year.   Filed them with bulbs went on with life.  

Now I want to do some planning. 

Couple questions, well a few actually:

1) is it safe to move plants around in the fall?

2) I have white lilies.  Actually quite a lot of white lilies.   I was thinking going tall in back medium one step forward and dwarfs in very front.   Problem is if I space them as recommended, there will be a lot of void.  Can we fill in void with annuals without harming the perennials?  Or do we need to maintain the 6" spacing between plants?

3) I have gorgeous crocosmia.  My yellow ones are clinging to the edge of the garden (literally right at the wood and along it is where they came up) even though the corns were planted 6" from the frame in a cluster.   Is there a way I can get them to cluster in a more uniform manner? 

4) Can you layer spring bulbs with summer plants?  So can I plant tulips above crocosmia corns or lilies?  Everything will be perennial.  So hoping to plant and have nice succession growth. 

5) is there good garden design software that enables you to envision where plants could go?  My front has a border along the house and 4, 2x6 raised beds across from them.  I wasn't to picture how the plants would look if I moved them and added to them.   I made a google slide, but I cannot get down to the nitty gritty.

I think that is all I need to know for now.

Thanks for your advice
Tammy

Fairygirl

Hi @TJ7933 - It's perfectly safe to move plants in autumn/fall. 
You can certainly add some annuals in between your perennials/lilies. The lilies will gradually increase and fill out though. 
With crocosmias - that's how they grow. The corms spread, often by filling in above the previous ones, and those ones become less productive, so it's always good to split them every few years. The common monbretia spreads very readily in all directions though, so it might be the one you're seeing. It can be quite invasive.
You won't really be able to put tulips above crocosmia, because tulips would normally be planted at around the same depth, or lower, than the crocosmia corms, unless it's the smaller species tulips, as those are mostly smaller.  They'd often be at around a similar depth as lilies too, so it would be better to pick something more suitable if you want to do that. A rough guide is going by the bulb size, as you generally plant at around three times the depth of the bulb's size. Things like crocus, dwarf narcissus and snowdrops etc have much smaller bulbs and would be fine.
Most people her use a pencil and paper I'm afraid, but I believe there are software programmes available. Someone else might have better info on that. 

Fairygirl

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