Expert: Long Island Gardener - 6/11/2008

Question
What do you do with the plant after the flowers are gone and the palnt starts wilting?  Do you cut them to the ground?

Answer
NOOOOOOOO!  Do not cut anything!!!!  Leave the Daffodils alone!

Water all your Spring Bulbs diligently, especially when they wilt.  They need plenty of natural resources in order to build the flower power for NEXT SPRING's show.  True story!  The flower that you see next Spring is formed during the Spring/Summer of the previous year, and stored for future use next Spring.  You can wreck it any time from now to then and won't know about the damage until Winter's over and it's time for the Spring Flower Show. And then you wonder, What went wrong?

Those bulbs are wilting?  Water them, please.  Or you'll be sorry.

When is it safe to stop caring for these?  When the leaves are brown and shriveled, your work is done.  Cut back, and leave the site alone.  Don't water anymore.  They're asleep. Watering at that point would be like pouring a pitcher of water over someone while they're sleeping.  No fun, right?  That's what the Bulb will think, too.

If you're really crazy about Spring Bulbs, you would actually go to the trouble to 'lift' (i.e., dig up) all your Bulbs after they've reached that dormant out to lunch state in midsummer.  Then you'd store them in the basement.  Me, I don't have that kind of time.  Probably you don't either.

But it will pay to bite the bullet and watch these mounds of worthless foliage lie around another few weeks.  They're hard at work, constructing the petals and stems for everything you see next Spring.  Water and then ignore them.  You'll be glad you did.

L.I.G.