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Spring flowering bulbs taking up space
Hey everyone, so my garden is small and space is tight - some of the spring bulbs have finished flowering and are kinda taking up space (eg daffodils) Can I dig them up and plant them somewhere out the way? Or should I dig them up and "store" them indoors somewhere? I'd like them to flower again next year etc Many thanks!!
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The bulbs are best left in situ until the leaves have died back but failing that, transplant them so that they can bulk up for the next season.
Some of my new tulips were very disappointing. Nice photos on the packets, though. They will go on the compost heap. With the ones I like, I pick off the leaves individually as they yellow, rather than waiting for the whole lot to die off. This frees up a bit of space. You can plant new things and still have a good idea where the bulbs are so that you don't damage them.
I plant many of my spring bulbs in pots so that when the flowers have finished I can move them out of the way and let them die back naturally.
In the summer I just stick some annual bedding plants on the top and bring the pot back out on show.
The annuals get binned in the late autumn clear out, a fresh top dressing and then wait for spring again.
A lot of my bulbs are in pots, then go under the garden bench when they die off.
Same for me - mostly use pots for spring flowering bulbs then remove the pots when the colourful show is over, just adding more feed when the growing season starts all over again next winter. We have bulbs in the grass bank & under the trees but we leave them alone to die down without removing them from the soil.
I had the same dilemma last year, so i dug them up and planted them in large pots just haphazzardly but say tulips in one daffs in the others,as i had hundreds and covered with garden soil, then when they had died down completely, i sorted them, dried them out and then bought plastic pots (35cm) and just layered them into the pots, mix of daffs & tulips, they have all come up lovely this year and all the tulips have flowered again, then as others have said when they are browning you can just move them out of sight, when space is tight it drives you mad waiting for them to die off when planted in the garden doesn't it
I've had some Tete-aTetes in bulb baskets for several years. I do leave them in situ as long as possible and feed or water with tomato food if dry but, then when I want the space, I just lift them out and store under our old brick built bar-b-q. They are then replanted in autumn.
aym280 after i put them in the holding pot and covered them in soil i watered them, then basically left them out of sight, if it rained they got watered and that was it. once they had died off completely, i cleaned the mud off them, and laid them in the sum for a few days then stored them in hessian sacks( i only stored in sacks because i had't yet bought the pots) then when ready just plant them up in their pots and leave them outside and forget about them.
i used 35cm pots and filled with compost to a 1/3 from bottom, put in 1st layer of bulbs, compost then more bulbs, think i did 3 or 4 layers, the good thing i found with this method is you get an ongoing display as the bottom ones take longer to get to the surface
I also layered my daffs in their pots this time ( about 20 in each pot) & although I don't have any photos to show - they really did look much better than just planting them all at the same depth - the flower display lasted much longer too. However they did wilt once or twice through lack of watering so don't forget to give them extra water.