How long for spring bulbs to naturalise?

I planted some snowdrops, daffodils and bluebells in autumn and they're coming up nicely. I want them to naturalise under a silver birch and wondered how long this usually takes. Do they increase each year?

 

If they are happy and you leave them alone to die down naturally, then yes they should increase year by year. You may wish to sprinkle a little gerneral fertiliser on the surface btween them , once the flowers have finished to help them along.

 

snowdrops and bluebells are natural weedy type things. A friend of mine bought a bungalow that was on land once (and I talking decades) on natural woodland. The folk there still have to root up the bluebells every year - they consider them weeds!

But I took some off him and planted them in my garden and they're doing very well after three years. Not exactly taken over yet, you understand, but doing well.

As for the snowdrops - I dug over an 8' by 3' flower bed and sifted out around 1500 bulbs. They laid in a cardboard box in the shed for about 2-3 years before I got around to planting them and they took off like exocets! Then I read somewhere that the bulbs needed careful handling, had to be lifted at a particular time of the year and replanted immediately or they wouldn't thrive.

Just as well my bulbs couldn't read!!!

 

Lovely! I'll do the fertiliser and hope I have a few more to enjoy next year.