Discover the beauty of growing from bulbs
How to help flowers bloom to the fullest — and prepare them do it all again next year
If I were to name the nearest thing to perfection for city gardeners, it's flowering bulbs. They combine two unabashed virtues — they provide a spectacular display year after year, and ask almost nothing in the way of care in return.
By early May, my front garden is putting on its best show of the year. The snowdrops and crocuses that pushed up through the snow last month are soon replaced by different sizes and colours of daffodils with staggered flowering times, and a broad swath of tiny grape hyacinths that have spread to take over almost every bit of exposed earth that doesn't already have something growing on it.
In another week or so, the red Darwin tulips will be out. I think I've got something like 50 of them in a swooping two-by-three-foot arc close to the sidewalk. And dotted all through the garden are “volunteers” — mostly single tulips or small groups, which pop up here and there like wildflowers and give the garden the slightly untidy, cottagey look that I like.
I can't help feeling a little guilty when I'm working out front and people walking by stop to admire the Technicolor display. There are many things in this garden that I've worked much harder to earn praise for — the bulbs are just doing their bulb-y thing! But I'll bask in the glory anyway.
I won't tell you how to plant spring bulbs, because you do that in the fall. But I can give you a few tips on how to help keep your bulbs healthy and strong year after year. The secret to a bulb's success is its leaves, which do the work of photosynthesis and after flowering is over, let the plant build up its energy for next year.
The little guys, like crocuses, snowdrops, scilla and the like, can just be left alone to go to seed and spread their fortunes on the wind. But with daffodils, tulips and hyacinths (the larger Dutch hyacinths, that is, not the little grape hyacinths), you should deadhead them to ensure they put all their post-bloom energy into fattening up for next year.
As the blooms die, cut them off just below where they join the stem, leaving as much of the green stem upright and intact as possible. (I often feel like Morticia Addams when I do this.) You can give them a feed of bone meal or even commercial bulb fertilizer if you want, but it's not essential, especially if you've got good compost-rich soil.
Then leave them alone. That's it. Don't braid, trim or tie up the leaves, no matter how much you are tempted to. Ignore them until they are completely yellow and withered, which I'm afraid won't be for several months. (You can always plant other things around them to hide the mess.)
Some types of hybrid tulips have shorter life spans; after a few years, they'll just start sending up a bunch of sorry-looking leaves and no blooms. When this happens, dig them out and start over with new ones. Very old clumps of daffodils can stop blooming as well, but for a different reason; they get so overcrowded they can't breathe any more. In that case, let them go through a complete cycle till the leaves die down in midsummer, then carefully dig them up and plant the fattest and healthiest ones again in the fall, just as you would with brand-new bulbs.