Clearing borders and saving some plants

Just one suggestion re your newly potted up plants, @orbitingstar. If you have local squirrels, they might start digging in them to bury acorns, etc. Covering them with some rigid plastic mesh (like the stuff sold to grow clematis against) will foil the pesky wotsits.

 

ooh good tip! We do have a couple of squirrels who are a nightmare for my bird feeders, and we always cover our potted bulbs to keep them out. I’ll do the same with these.

 

Strangely enough we have squirrels here, but they do not seem to go for our pots. In the past (at the right time of year) we have had trouble with bees making nests in pots though.
For anyone planting bulbs one good piece of advice I was given was to really firm the soil of the planting place and then mulch over the top of that. It is the freshly dug soil which the tree rats go for.

 

I used to put a layer of netting or mesh with soil back on top for small bulbs in borders, but it's then a problem if you want to add something else there, so I just accept that I might lose some, no matter what I do. Squirrels will have a go on a regular basis.
I use it [mesh/net] for pots though, but only the small bulbs as they're the ones they can access. Larger bulbs should be planted deeply enough that they can't reach them.

It's the bird feeders that they go for more than anything though, hence my cages and no peanuts, which helps. The ground feeder food usually gets eaten before they arrive.

Re the crocosmia - I thnk it's definitely conditions and soil types which make the difference @Palustris , but it can be annoying when something you want to do well - doesn't, and the things you aren't so bothered about go mad and take over! My E. McK has disappeared a bit, but it's been crowded out by other planting, so I'll need to move it.