How to recycle your beautiful spring bulbs

Spring Bulb Care Guide: How to Plant, Maintain & Re-use Bulbs for Beautiful Blooms

Spring is a wonderful time of new growth and cheerful colours. Snowdrops, daffodils, grape hyacinths and hyacinths are in flower at this time. These bulbs are perennials meaning they will grow again for the following years. They die back about six weeks after flowering and will re-emerge in spring the following year.

Where to plant out?

For best results spring bulbs should be planted in sun or partial shade and in soil that is moist but doesn’t get waterlogged. When planting out pot grown bulbs then placing them deep enough in the ground for the bulb size will make sure that they will flower in subsequent years.

Once the blooms have started to die down, dead head the larger bulbs such as daffodils, tulips and hyacinths to prevent their resources being put into the developing seed head. Leave the leaves to continue to grow and photosynthesise over the next 6 weeks until they die back naturally. In this time the plant is storing nutrients back into the bulb giving it enough energy to flower the following year.

Naturalising

Planting out and leaving bulbs in the ground is a matter of purpose and preference. Some bulbs such as daffodils, grape hyacinths and crocuses will naturalise easily when they are in an a preferred situation, producing more bulbs and increased flowering over the following years. However some do so well that they become invasive. Grape hyacinths (muscari) are good at this and will take over, so spring is also a good time to remove some of these bulbs so they don’t get out of hand and swamp other plants or bulbs.

Tulips do not naturalise as well. Some tulip species are happy to be left in the ground when planted in a place that dries off over the summer. This is also the case for the larger flowered tulips. Finding the right spot is important for tulips to prevent the bulbs from rotting. Planting in pots that can be moved round the garden and kept drier than the ground is one solution if you have damp clay soil. Alternatively, tulip bulbs can be lifted and dried off and stored until time to plant in the autumn. The choice is yours. If you want good blooms for the following year then buying new ones may also be a solution planting out the older ones in a less obvious spot and hopefully being surprised at a display the following year if they survive.

Buried treasure 

I first started planting out indoor bulb pots at my mothers suggestion tucking some hyacinths into a border and when weeding nearby the following year was surprised by a drift of scent and some beautiful blooms. Planting out potted bulbs and in this way ‘recycling’ them gives them a longer lease of life and will give ongoing pleasure as well.