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Feature Columns > Columnists > Jean Bowman



Spring Bulbs After Bloom
By Jean Bowman

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Once spring flowering bulbs finish bloom, proper handling and care of perennial ones will help them to bloom again next year.  The first question to answer is, which of your bulbs are perennial?  This may be difficult with some tulips, most of which are treated as annuals.
Chances are, if your bulbs grew and bloomed this spring, they are hardy in your area.  If they should have been hardy but didn't come up or bloom, there could be several reasons.  If the soil is too wet (bulbs like good drainage), they could have rotted.  Something could have eaten them, above or below ground.  Perhaps they started growing last fall, or early in the spring, only to have the buds killed by cold. 

A couple rules apply to all bulbs in addition to providing them with good soil drainage.  When planting, hopefully you added some bulb fertilizer or source of phosphorus (for healthy roots).  Before, and during, bloom or both are good times to apply more bulb fertilizer.  This can be a granular form as bulbs are emerging.  Or, you can water with a liquid fertilizer.  The key is to provide nutrients then as the leaves are making food for next year.

The second rule is to let the leaves die back naturally.  If they are unsightly and fall over, try clipping tips back by a third to a half.  Daffodil leaves, if not too many bulbs, can be bent over and tied in a knot or with a rubber band.  If you have room, plant some annual flowers in front or in between to hide the dying bulb leaves.  These leaves are key to producing the food, and so healthy bulbs, for next year.
           
You can, and should, cut off flower stalks after bloom, especially if they start to form seeds.  You want all the bulb energy to go into next year's bulb, not seed production.

If you must dig up spring bulbs, either to make room for annual flowers, or for other reasons, just make sure you leave the leaves on.  Digging and transplanting often will make them die back faster.  If you want to place the bulbs in a temporary holding area, or "heel them in", to replant next fall, just make sure you mark them so you can find them come fall!  An easy way to do this is to just "pot" the bulbs in a large pot with soil, compost, or soil-less medium where you know exactly where they are once the leaves die off.

If bulbs are becoming too crowded, as often happens with large daffodil clumps, or are blooming much less than in previous years, perhaps they need dividing.  Dig and shake the soil off bulbs after bloom, leaving leaves attached if not died off already.  Bulbs should separate naturally, otherwise plant back ones still joined together.  Don't forcibly pry bulbs apart.

Tulips are a bit different.  If you got 50 beautiful tulip blooms the first year you may have gotten only five the next and none the next, perhaps not even leaves.  Most of the tulips you find and buy and love are hybrids.  Once they reach several years old, the stage in their life in which they produce the biggest flowers and the stage we buy, they split after bloom into many smaller bulbs.  If you've dug up tulips after the leaves start dying in early summer you may have noticed this.  This is their means of multiplying naturally, and a trait of course bulb growers love and often select them for.  So these bulbs will not generally bloom again, so treat them as annuals.

A few groups of hybrids, notably the Darwins, Emperors and some Triumphs, don't split and so will come back for many years.  You'll find these marked in catalogs and stores as perennial or for "perennializing".  Some plant tulips deeper in fall, nine inches or more deep instead of the usual five or six inches, and claim this helps make them last more years, possibly from cooler soil temperatures.

Following these simple suggestions will ensure that we "Beautify Findlay" next Spring.

Source: www.buckeyegardening.com


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