Hi all,
I got a pot full of the tiny daffodils and a pot of hyacinths that a neighbor gave me. The flowers have dried up pretty badly. Do I cut the greenery off of them and plant them outside now or should I wait until fall? I didn't know if I should treat them like you outside bulbs and wait until the green died back and cut it off and plant in the fall or if I could plant them now. Any suggestions?
Pat
You wait until most of the greenry has died, as the bulb reabsorbs the energy and stores it for next year. Having said that, often bulbs don't bloom the 2nd and 3rd year. You just get green shoots.
-S
Don't trim the greenery. It's food for next year's bulbs and blooms. If you can set the plants out now where they're intended to grow, that would be my first choice. My second choice would be to put the pot outside, keep it watered, and plant when things have withered. Don't wait till fall, because you'll probably forget, if you're like me.
Kay
The energy the plant stores this year is from this year's photosynthesis from the leaves. It is not reabsorbed from the leaves. So, you should leave the foliage on the plants and plant them in the soil as is right now. Be sure to water them and fertilize them with a good bulb fertilizer. They may or may not bloom next year.
Don't know why so many people have this misconception.
The leaves themselves are not the food. The leaves produce the food through photosynthesis.
As long as the foliage is green it is photosynthesizing and making food for the bulbs. However, as they begin to turn yellow and die back, moisture and nutrients remaining in the foliage is absorbed by the bulb.
The small growing daffodils are very fast to increase so when you do plant them out (4 to 5 inches deep) allow space for increase between the bulbs. The larger bulbs may very well bloom next spring, their second year will give a nice display and by the third year they will begin to make rather bold statements in the Spring flower beds. These are perfect for front of the border, in rockeries and under shrubs.
I have had to life and divide the ones I have about every 4 to 5 year to keep them from crowding out other plants and to keep them blooming heavily.
Hemma
not sure why folks didn't read that in the post... Kay was using shorthand of implied words, at least in my reading.
Saying the leaves are the food to me is like saying the earth is a farmers livelyhood... when in actuality, the crops are.
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