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Caring for Spring Bulbs After They Have Finished Blooming |
By James E. Klett, Colorado State University Cooperative Extension Specialist, Landscape Plants
As spring bulbs -- daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths -- finish flowering, remove their faded blooms. Bulbs will exhaust themselves if seeds set within the old blooms, and the plant doesn't need the seeds anyway. Cut off the dead flower heads, as well as 1 to 2 inches of stem.
Leave the remaining stems and leaves on the plants, as they help to build up nourishment in the bulbs. The leaves can be removed after they turn yellow and are easily pulled loose. Apply water as needed while the leaves are still green. You can plant annuals among the maturing leaves; this masks their unattractiveness at this stage.
On a hyacinth, remove the small flowers that make up the spike. Do this by running your hand from below the flower cluster to the tip. Leave the flower stem, because it will provide nourishment for the bulb.
Some bulbs and corms multiply freely from self-sown seeds. Unless you want additional plants, dead-head snowdrops, scillas and muscaris. If you don't, you will have more of them next year.
Muscari seed heads
Photographs courtesy of Judy Sedbrook
