Expert: Long Island Gardener - 3/5/2007

Question
How long should you wait to dig up a bulb after it has bloomed and how do you store them? I mainly have tulips, crocuses and irises.

Answer
Don't dig up ANYTHING until the leaves have withered!!!!!

Tulips are tricky and not reliably "perennial" no matter what you do.  Leaving them in the ground, planted deep, usually tilts the odds slightly in your favor.  Digging is helpful if you store them cool, in a paper bag, in the dark, but don't dig them up until the leaves have completely browned and withered.

Crocuses should be kept in the ground.  Plant deep to keep them away from squirrels and other hungry rodents.

Irises, ditto.

Always let the foliage self-destruct.

Here's why:

After a Tulip (or crocus) blooms, it starts building up next year's flower.  It needs light and soil and water to do all that, and it can't do anything without leaves.

It will also make seeds after blooming is done.  So the first thing you should do, before anything else, is remove the finished flower.  You don't even have to wait for the petals to drop.  You can pluck the flower right off the top of the stem.  That way there won't be a drop of energy wasted making seeds that you don't want.

But the bulb needs blooms for next year.  So it will do one (or both) of 2 things:

It will make next year's flower.

It will make "bulblets".  Offshoots that will bloom.... someday.

Crocuses are more perennials and less fussy.  Ditto again, Irises.  Tulips don't often last more than 3 or 4 years any more.  The most popular Tulips are developed for their stunning presence in the garden.  Not for perennial habit.

Any questions?