{"id":10264,"date":"2018-04-07T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2018-04-07T16:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/?p=10264"},"modified":"2018-03-28T17:13:04","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T21:13:04","slug":"when-to-cut-back-foliage-of-spring-flowering-bulbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/2018\/04\/07\/when-to-cut-back-foliage-of-spring-flowering-bulbs\/","title":{"rendered":"When To Cut Back Foliage Of Spring Flowering Bulbs"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tulip planting<\/p><\/div>\n

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Narcissus + hyacinth<\/p><\/div>\n

Once your tulips, daffodils and other spring flowering bulbs have bloomed, don\u2019t be in a hurry to cut off the stems and leaves. \u00a0Plant foliage serves an\u00a0valuable role in the health and growth of bulbous plants. The green leaves absorb sunlight and carbon dioxide as a part of the process of photosynthesis.<\/p>\n

The spent blossoms are no longer needed and should be removed as soon as the flowers fade. Leaving the old flowers may encourage seed formation which further exhausts the food supply in the bulbs. Unless you are interested in growing daffodils or tulips from seed, the old blooms should be pruned off. Bulb growth, including the formation of new bublets is promoted.<\/p>\n

It is not unusual to see garden workers at large public and private gardens pulling up bulbs right after they have bloomed.\u00a0Several\u00a0hours later, they may be planting annuals and perennials for spring \u2013 summer garden displays. In this instance the bulbs\u00a0are considered annuals and are dug up and discard.\u00a0These bulbs are mostly depleted of food material and most will not re-bloom next year without new carbohydrates being produced.\u00a0\u00a0In fall,\u00a0garden staff will plant new bulbs.<\/p>\n

Most home gardeners want their bulbs to perennialize, e.g. come back every spring. For small gardens the following suggestions should help minimize the impact of spent foliage in your garden.\u00a0About a month after the flowers have faded, the leaves will turn yellow. At this time cutback the all stems and leaves about an inch above the ground. If there is space, at least 3-4 inches between the bulbous stems, plant\u00a0bedding plants between. For this purpose, I attach an augur bit to my power drill to set summer annuals. Add a layer of an organic mulch to the bed and you\u2019re ready for a summer of dazzling color. Feed bulbs and new annuals in spring and summer. Your bulbs will be back again next spring.<\/p>\n

Another idea\u00a0is to interplant spring blooming bulbs with winter hardy pansies, wallflowers, diascias, dianthus, et.al. in the fall. Bulbs and pansies will offer a full bed of color. Once the pansies have finished flowering in the heat of late spring, you may fill the void with summer annuals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once your tulips, daffodils and other spring flowering bulbs have bloomed, don\u2019t be in a hurry to cut off the stems and leaves. \u00a0Plant foliage serves an\u00a0valuable role in the health and growth of bulbous plants. The green leaves absorb sunlight and carbon dioxide as a part of the process of photosynthesis. The spent blossoms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[444,398,1117,747,1351,749,605,1037,1064,521,784,1070,665,1138,626,602,1012,774,1407,853,551,619,625,843,812,601,729,933,1451,630,705,785,646,1063,708,455],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10264"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10270,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10264\/revisions\/10270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whatgrowsthere.com\/grow\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}