Planting spring bulbs in containers

My daffs and tulips are finished blooming and I'm trying to tidy up the flowerbeds. Somewhere either on this website or Gardenweb.com, a member planted their spring bulbs in inexpensive pots during the winter and covered them with shredded leaves. That person had posted pictures of his experiment. It was my understanding that after the bulbs finished blooming, the entire container could be lifted from the flowerbed and placed elsewhere until the foliage completely died back.

I have been out since daybreak bending down the foliage on the daffs and tying them with a piece of garden twine. My dear MIL used to use the same method but used rubber bands. She'd been a successful gardener since early childhood. A friend claims she cuts the daff foliage back about 6 in. and lets the rest of the daff die back. This way she can plant something in front of it without much visability of daff foliage.

What can be done with the tulip foliage? Do I snap the tulip head off like you do for daffs?

Hi, pippi,

I guess you could plant your bulbs in plastic containers, protect them from freeze with a leaf blanket (or dig and put thepot and all right in a hole, depending on your particular freeze/thaw weather patterns and critter problems), and then plant the pot and all in the ground in springtime. Sort of a portable tulip bed. I do something quite like this with my tulip bulbs to protect them from critters, although I don't really try to save them for the next year. I find that pot planting and replanting it's a bit of work but at least I save them from the squirrels and rabbits and can enjoy some nice tulips.

Sometimes I grow all my tulips in one big (protected) flat and then when they are ready to bloom in the spring I take out the bloom ready ones and make nice flower baskets and urns, refilling as they die out with fresh bulb blooms as they come on. I don't bother to save my tulip bulbs since mine return so poorly. Others in more bulb friendly climates have better luck with this I think.

If you want to try to use daffs (and some tulips) again the next year, try to feed them with some 'low N and high P & K fertilizer' once or twice (i.e., when greens first emerge and later when they come into bloom). I use liquid Miracle Gro for Blooms in the purple box on my daffs.

Tying down the daff greens with twine or one of the long leaves is a quaint old cottage garden technique that I find quite attractive~~although the whole point of maintaining the greens intact is so that they can absorb sun shine (to make chlorophyl, if I remember h.s. biology) to create a nice fat bulb. I'm not sure that tied down greens will be able to do that. Certainly the American Daff Society does not recommend tying down but some might say they are a little obsessive about growing daffs.

I do chop my daff greens after about 6 or 8 weeks at about the 5 or 6 inch mark and then overplant with my favorite perennials. This too is a little perilous for the daff bulbs because they like dry well-drained conditions during the summer and I do do extra watering of my perennials so have some bulb loss the next year, at least for more delicate varieties.

There isn't a lot you can do about the daff greens except select garden positions where the post bloom mess isn't visible, or over-plant with, say, daylilies, delay cutting leaves as long as you can stand it (five or six weeks for me) and expect some reduced return, or just give 'em the yank after bloom and plan to replant new ones next year.

Of course, if you are a Daff Society Member you might want to dig your show quality bulbs after the greens die down, dry them in a garage or barn, bag them in old onion bags and replant in the fall. That's too much work for me!

Good luck! t.

I don't have an old onion bag, buy my onions one or two at a time. Do you think if I put my daff bulbs into one of those net bags that you buy for putting delicate underwear in, and hang them in garage until Fall, that they would be okay? Why not a nylon net bag? I would think that would work also. Now to get somebody to make me a drawstring bag out of the nylon net. I think it would be easier to use the lingerie laundry bag. You can buy them at places like BB&B.

Oh, I don't really think you have to go to that length.

You can use a paper bag with some holes in it. Keep them in a place that gets some air circulation. Just so the bulbs don't get moldy.

Pantyhose
Martha