I know that the foliage of tulips and daffodils should die down before digg ing up the bulbs. I g to a lovely show from the ones I planted in half barrels but now I would like to plant up those barrels with summer annuals. Would it work if I dug up the bulbs with their leaves left on and dried them off in something like banana cartons or do they actually have to remain in the soil?

I had thought that it was critical for them to remain in the soil as that is where they get their nutrients from to store and use for growing next season.
While I love bulbs I don't like how they look at this time of year. I have an entire garden of wilted long leaves.

I know you should leave them in the ground till the leaves are yellow. You are right, they are so unsightly. I dug them up, left the leaves on and put them in a banana box with newspaper on top to keep the light away. I'll replant in March and see what happens.

One of the reasons for box hedging is to hide unsightly messes in the garden, which I never truly appreciated until I had established box hedging myself. Box hedging is kind of like a skirt to hide behind - you see only the lovely tops of plants...

Some people fold the bulb leaves' length in half and put a tie around the bunch (or they tie the leaves in a knot). I've occasionally done the tie thing if the leaves are just too long and straggly.

The best thing if you must take the bulbs out of the containers (wine barrels) is dig a hole in your garden and plonk them in there. But if you've waited for the leaves to turn yellow then they should have received sufficient food for next season and it would be okay to dry them off..



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2018 04:43AM by J1.

Thank you, Heather. Hopefully I can do that next year.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2018 11:12PM by Chris.