How to use the same bed used for bulbs for other flowers during the year?
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How to use the same bed used for bulbs for other flowers during the year?

Hi there! I hope you can answer this overarching question easily. I just KNOW there's some sort of principle I don't understand at work here!
Basically, here's what I'm doing...once a year, I buy bags of bulbs from Costco and put them into our only two beds in the Fall. We then get glorious flowers from March through at least May (mostly Ranunculus, enormous tulips, etc.). It takes forever for them to all "die back/yellow" so in the meantime, I'm wanting to put more colorful flowers in there among the dying stems...but do I dig them out? Bury them with a tad of topsoil and replant with something seasonal? I know that watering plants "on top of them" could cause rot. Best to just dig them out./toss out the Ranuncs? we live in a fabulous gardening zone, San Leandro California,
Thanks so much!

Doug says that indeed this is the big question posed by gardeners the continent over.

In your case, I'd dig out the bulbs and toss 'em. If you're willing to lay them in every year fresh from purchased bulbs, then that would be my choice. I'd have a great looking garden for as long as I needed.

In my case, I plant over top of the bulbs and expect them to disappear. Fact of life and I don't even pretend to want to keep them around for longer than necessary.

They're simply incompatible and there is no "secret formula" for making this happen. :-(

So you either plant the bulbs in a place they can grow and thrive or you take your losses as you garden over top of them.

You've got the climate - I'd go with take a huge show and dump 'em.

Having said that, if you have the space you might find transplanting them right after bloom would allow you to keep them growing (many bulbs will transplant so-so right after bloom while still green - not happily but they do). Grow them in a waste area of the garden and then move them back after they're dormant when you normally plant them.

Or you could just have fun, dig 'em all up and give them to friends who want to try to save them.

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How to use the same bed used for bulbs for other flowers during the year?

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drought-resistant perennials
by: Anonymous

I would try some xeric or drought-resistant groundocovers and plants on top. That would take care of the whole watering during the summer problem. Unless the absence of a cold period is what does them in every year. Then I would find a friend who would love to get some free bulbs [in a colder climate]
planting over bulbs
by: Susan

I find it is possible to, as they say, have your cake and eat it, too, where bulbs and other plants are concerned. If you are talking about re-planting your bulbs every year, why not go ahead and try growing perennials or annuals in the same bed, what have you got to lose? Put something in above your bulbs, see what happens.
bulbs
by: Anonymous

or send them to me to save :)

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