During the late spring..

A friend gave me some bulbs to plant. I think they are some sort of daffoldils or on that order. I have never had any before. I made a bed and planted them all in it. Covered it up with pinestraw and the weeds and grass still grew up through it. I never expected anythign there to grow and almost had my son get out and mow it.

But, I went out the other day to check on my daylilies and noticed this whole row of tall green leaves. They are from one type of those bulbs I planted.

Now this is really stupid , but since it's coming on to winter are they supposed to be growing now? Will the cold and frost kill them back ? Or do daffodils or whatever it is I have do they grow so tall now?

Ella

Uk experience would say quite a lot of spring flowering bulbs start growing in the late fall. They seem to cope with frost and snow OK but the don't grow fast and they don't put up flower spikes much before February.
HTH

starlight, there are NO stupid questions, just various levels of experience here. (I was where you are about 4 years ago.)

The daffs or whatever are doing fine, putting up some greenery to support root growth for winter. You will be amazed come spring!

(If you haven't already, sprinkle a bit of bone meal around the greenery. It will get down to the bulbs by sringa and they will thank you.)

Thank you so much for the information Okus and Darius. It will interesting to see what does bloom. I am down in zone 8a and didn't know what to do with them other than plant em.

I'll get some bone meal, cuz I haven't put anything on them or done anything to them since I planted them. They were planted in a natural organic ground area.

Should I sprinkle some of the bone meal around the rest of the area too where I planted another variety of bulb she gave me , but I don't know what it is but it hasn't come up yet?

Thanks again!
Ella

Bone meal scattered lightly on all bulb areas is always a good idea, twice a year.

Are you sure some of them aren't grape hyacinths (muscari)? These bulbs send up leaves during the fall and die off throughout the winter. Then in the early spring the bulbs send up the flower.

I live in zone 8 and this weekend noticed my daffodils coming up.

starlight,

Your daffodils will be fine, unless they're some tender Tazetta variety that isn't cold hardy. Narcissus are as a rule TOUGH and can talk more serious extremes of cold that you or I will experience in the south. I once forgot to turn my sprinklers off a couple of years ago and the water that sprayed on the open flowers in late Feb or early March froze solid, and the flowers were hanging down. A few hours later I checked them once it warmed up and the sun was out, and they had popped back up and looked like nothing had ever happened. Even open tulip flowers don't seem to be as tough as daffodils, and if the bud's open, it can burn the flower pretty badly. The leaves at least of tulips and daffodils will be unaffected by the cold, though I CANNOT say the same of Asiatic lilies (the bulbs are fine, I'm talking about leaves that have sprouted). Had one pop up early a week or so ago, we got a hard freeze, and let's just say it won't be blooming this year. But, it is pretty normal to see leaves for daffodils start to pop through the ground here in TX at least in late December.