Bulbs: What do you plant when the tulips are done?, 1 by LeawoodGardener

LeawoodGardener wrote:
I like to have a full season of bloom in my yard, but the question always comes up, "What are you going to do with that area when the tulips are done?"

I have two large beds that I plant with tulips in the fall. Come spring, they are filled with color but by late May, they are done. Until a couple of years ago, I'd pull up the tulips as soon as the blooms faded and toss them. Then I'd fill the bed with an annual of some sort and call it good. Two years ago, at the urging of a wonderful DG gardener (and an economy that was in a tailspin), I tried digging and saving the bulbs.

After some research, I learned that the bulbs need to stay in the ground for a while after they bloom, so they can suck nutrients from the foliage and develop for the next year. Instead of digging them as soon as they had bloomed, I tried letting the foliage mature and die... which means an unsightly bed for 6-8 weeks. I tried it, and it worked great.

Last year I did the same thing, and this was my 2011 bed of "Mrs. John Scheepers" - bulbs I bought in 2009 and dug in June of 2010.