Bulb Care After Spring Flowering

Generally speaking, bulbous plants (which include true bulbs, as well as corms and tubers) are among the simplest of plants to grow and many survive for years without any attention. To get the best from them however, a little extra effort will pay off. These plants have evolved to lie dormant during challenging weather conditions, be it summer heat or winter cold, so gardeners need not be too concerned about them for much of the year. As far as looking after them once they’re planted is concerned, there are three general points to observe:

Don’t accidentally dig them up or damage them when dormant. It’s easy to forget where your bulbs are during the dormant season when you are searching for a nice place to plant that latest buy from the local nursery. Little is more sickening than spearing a healthy lily or expensive snowdrop bulb with a border fork. Label plants to avoid this.
Take care with the mower The foliage of bulbs grown in grass must be allowed to wither away and die back completely after flowering, in order to replenish the bulb’s reserves for next year’s flowers. Practising No Mow May can be a helpful way of preventing accidents with spring flowering bulbs.
3. Feed your bulbs after flowering with high potassium feed, such as tomato fertilizer. Each fall Barnswallow mixes affordable 10-10-10 fertilizer granules with the topsoil.

Daffodils & Other Narcissus

Traditional harbingers of spring blooming bulbs flower over a remarkably long period – almost half the year, if you start with the earliest blooming bulbs and stager with fall blooming bulbs, like fall blooming allium varieties. Daffodils seem like they are growing everywhere in the spring. Sometimes we take them for granted while complain about a few weeks of yellowing, unsightly foliage. For this reason, these bulbs usually look best planted in drifts in lawns or below specimen trees. In manicured flower borders.

Caring for daffodils after flowering

After daffodils have flowered, de-head the blooms. Smaller, delicate kinds can be done quickly by hand with pinching. Leave the green stalk and foliage. If you have thousands in a meadow planting, use a long pole, cane or whip to shave off the faded heads just above foliage height. It's a fun experience.
For the best displays, feed your daffodils after the leaves yellow in the early summer or at least spread releasing fertilizer in the fall. This high potassium feed will promote more blooms next year.
Never be tempted to cut off the green foliage and certainly don’t tie it up. Rows of ugly knots simply draw attention to the problem and limit the bulbs’ ability to photosynthesise, reducing next year’s display. Only when the leaves have really yellowed and flopped can they be pulled away. You’ll know when they are ready as they separate from the bulb with a light tug.

Tulips

Most tulips grow best in a well-drained areas with a dry warm summer while they are dormant. Many gardeners are quite happy to use tulips as spring bedding, planting new bulbs afresh each year and trying out the most enticing selections, discarding old bulbs after flowering. That’s the easy, but the slightly wasteful route.

The alternative is to lift tulips after flowering or leave them in the ground. In gardens with free-draining soil bulbs may endure for a second year, or longer. In both these cases, it is worth feeding your tulips. Applying granular fertilizer with high potassium feed, such as tomato fertiliser, every week or two when in growth until leaves yellow, to promote more blooms next year.

Growing experience often identifies the most persistent tulips for leaving in the ground. Specialty tulips and their hybrids are certainly long lived and may increase. Kaufmannia is a great example of a specialty tulip variety. Among other cultivars like Viridiflora tulips, they are often reliable along with many Darwin Hybrids like the variety Pink Impression.

Caring for Tulips After Flowering

Like daffodils, tulips should be deadheaded if you are treating them as perennials; simply cut off faded flowers using sharp secateurs above the first leaf. This will prevent seed developing. If you are a seed gatherer and wanting to develop your own species, you may choose to retain heads so seed can set.
If you decide to lift, store and replant your tulips, the best time to act is just after foliage turns yellow. If you need to clear the ground or containers sooner, the tulips, top growth and all, can be lifted and placed in a cold frame until leaves yellow.
Once top growth has withered clean it off and remove old soil. Bulbs should be firm and healthy; throw out any with rot or mould and allow them to dry. Then store in old baker’s trays or netted bags in an airy but dark place such as a shed or garage. Bulbs can then be re-planted in autumn. It’s worth noting flowering is unlikely to be as impressive as it was the first year.

OTHER BULBS & HOW TO CARE FOR THEM

Alliums

Many alliums make easy-care bulbs. They tend to do best dry, well-drained sites. One problem with selections such as popular Purple Sensation, is that leaves yellow as flowers arise. This is natural and no cause for concern. If the leaves are unsightly whip them off with a knife if yellow. Leave faded flower heads in place. They make attractive features when in seed. You can feed in early spring with an application of general-purpose granular fertilizer.

Crocus

Among the first bulbous plants to flower (actually they are corms), crocus are plants for sunny open sites and best in lawns, rock gardens or containers. It is worth feeding them with general purpose granular fertiliser after flowering. It can boost growth for next year. Potted plants can be fed with tomato fertilizer while in leaf. Take care not to mow grass-like foliage of crocus in lawns before it has yellowed.

**Snowdrops (*Galanthus***)

Given the high prices some people are willing to pay for an individual bulb of a rare selection of snowdrop, it is important to get the care of these generally easy-to-grow bulbs correct. Mulch with garden compost just before flowering, then after flowering apply a light feed with a general-purpose granular fertilizer, such as Growmore. While lifting and planting while the plant is green, it is easy and can work well when planting large numbers of common. During this stage, plants are in full growth, both above and below soil and disturbing them now checks their performance. If you have clumps that need splitting, you are better off waiting until foliage has almost withered away (May-June), indicating the bulb is dormant.

If the summer is hot and dry, it’s worth watering the ground where snowdrop bulbs lie. They do not want to dry out. Make sure the area has been mulched with organic matter.

Bulbs in Pots

For bulbs kept long-term in containers, feeding will be important. Apply high potassium feed, such as tomato fertilizer every week or two when in growth until the leaves yellow. While bulbs are dormant, stand pots out of the way somewhere; generally, they like to be relatively dry unless they are they are woodland species. This is the time to repot or replant in fresh compost. Some people like to grow bulbs in aquatic pots for plunging in border soil, which makes lifting the bulbs easier and quicker. Summer flowering lilies and gladiolus are good candidates for this treatment.