I just found a hundred or so daffodil bulbs I had divided and thinned last summer. Also some grape hyacinth and crocosmia in the mix. I can't believe I forgot about them!! They still look ok, and I realize they prob won't bloom for me since they haven't had the winter to reestablish themselves, but now I'm wondering what to do with them.. can I plant them out now? Do I wait til spring? Same for some bearded iris I neglected to replant, I have 2 5-gallon buckets full of rhizomes!! I'm surprised my plants don't shudder and shake when I come around, in fear of being the next victim of the plant torturer :(
Too late to plant daffodil & other bulbs?
I've always gardened under the theory that it won't grow if you don't plant it. While it may or may not be a little too late to get maximum blooms from the bulbs you've listed, you're only going to end up with a bag of mush if you try to keep them until the "correct" planting time next year.
For the iris rhizomes, if you decide to plant now, just cover with an extra helping of mulch and/or leaves and they should be ok. No planting in soggy soil though...
Steve
You're right.. They won't grow if I don't plant them!! Thanks for the nudge :)
You are in zone 7b. Does the ground freeze there? If so, I think I would wait until Spring and there are no freezes. Frost wont hurt but freeze might. Irises are not planted very deep at all so I would especially wait to plant them until Spring.
Steadycam, ground doesn't freeze here. Usually our winter lows don't make it below 20 or so, however this year has been an exception with readings dipping down into the teens. Brrrrr!
This year has been different all over. We had freezes here but they did not last as long as the two we had in 2009. In 2009, everything I had froze to the ground except one conifer and two trees.
2009 was crazy.. We got a foot of snow here on Christmas Eve! That was my first ever white Christmas and that's a major big deal having grown up in Hawaii! Lol
I'm sorry for your losses, that must have really sucked! I didn't have a garden then, we were in a rental, but I know the feeling.. I installed two new beds a little over a month before the last ice storm. I'm half afraid for spring to get here, hate to see how much I lost :(
Now for the stupid question, I'm going to plant all these bulbs this week, should I water them in? Feed them?
Adding a little bone meal, well mixed in to the soil around the bulb never hurts but if the soil is wet from recent weather conditions, I think I'd wait a few days before watering. At this point, you really only need enough moisture in the soil to rehydrate the bulb and root stems and bring them back to life.
Steve
Bone meal, will do. We barely got any rain last week (riddle me that, since if I drive 15 minutes in either direction there are STILL mud puddles alongside the road, yet my property is and has been bone dry allll weekend). I swear I live in a freaky "Bermuda Triangle" that prevents me from getting the good rain my neighboring counties do!! I'll see how the soil feels, and if it's parched, will water lightly. Thanks for the advice! :)
Aarg I forgot.. again! Just remembered when I saw all my other daffs sending up green yesterday, so planting them out this afternoon!!
Chuckl, thanx. I forgot to fertilize my narcissus when I was home. Gonna have to send my daughter a note to do that. I give em same fertilizer as my onions- a high triple digit fertilizer oreven just a tea of same if i need to.
Really, you fertilize them? I am still a newbie gardener (but that black thumb is starting to show some signs of life lol), and have not been able to get these daffodils to reliably bloom since moving into this house. This is my 4th spring coming up here and they have only bloomed once! That's the whole reason why I dug half of them out last year, only to fail to replant! Ai ai ai.
Anyway, still not sure what the prob is.. The ones left in the ground that is. Thought maybe they were competing with the lawn, maybe too much winter rain, needing divided, blah blah blah, I ramble..
I have seen old homesteads where a few plants turned into hundreds, most werent blooming, but some were. Some folks divide and pamper, i ignore and fertize with hi nitrogen,and they bloom twice a year sometimes. The bulbs on my narcissus are as big as tennis balls and seem to quadruple every year. My daffs on the other hand disappear like pizza in a teenagers house.
Whaaaaa tennis ball size?! I thought narcissus were the same as daffodil? Guess I was wrong! I need to find some pics from a few years back and ID them. Gonna fertilize mine and see if it helps..
I call my paperwhites narcissus. They do get big bulbs tho. And i fertilize when they are about 4" tall and a bit again while blooming. My ground is so sandy...but they flower so heavy too.
Aahhhh thanks for clarifying. Yes my daffs are in super sandy soil also, for I don't even know how many years.. Green comes up with no problem but then that's all that ever happens.. No blooms! I'm fertilizing them today! Think my fish emulsion would be okay?
What type fertilizer do you use Kitt? Would "super bloom" work?
I had leftover 10-20-10, for onions. i figure its a bulb too. Next will prob be a handful of 13-13-13. They are on a creek that floods at least once a year... Didnt get the liriope chopped to the ground and I know the grandaddy bugs hide in that stuff, but the paperwhites do great. My daff get eaten I think, they just disappear.
The experts argue with my sanity, but when I was up in Arlington and also lived in Wichita Falls, heard talk from some of the oilfield folks commenting on a band of land running with the Red Rvr that the rock core samples come up as short on iron in that area. I had liquad iron I diluted and would use on my onions (helps flavor and growth) spinach other hi iron veggies and always had good results. I guess I figure if a plant has a hi iron content, it needed that to grow. Beans fix nitrogen, so I planted at the edge of my pecan trees that got 11-0-0 spread and watered in every 6months. Squash and beans did great. Shrug. So did my pecans. Same principle, if it is a bulb, fertilize like an onion depending on the ground it lives in. My daughter tells me Too many things arent dying lately...
Might have to get some liquid iron for here. I'm over a limestone band so alkaline it has killed my red oak (non shumardi) and a water oak, and the symptoms looked like chloriosis. Finally got an arborist to tell me what my growing blight was, and he said it was the roots contacting the limestone, the soil is just to alkaline for east Texas trees. They do well til about 12 feet tall... I guess maybe iron is ok at the top of the soil?
I would mix a blop into a gal jug of water- ummm maybe 1/4 cup blop. for the pines, i would sink a d head shovel in ground and pour the gal in. I think my grandad got hold of the iron and added without water, chuckl, had Ardmore in a tizzy cuz his pines looked awesome all year. For the garden i did same mix, but just trailed it along the growing plants like fertilizer . I dont think it could keep a red oak nor red maple alive, and Ardmore isnt quite as alkaline as you are, but veggies are prob good with this.