Moving Bulbs in early spring - house moving

by nancy
(knoxville, tn)

I read that it's best to move them after the leaves yellow but that you can move them right after they bloom. The bulbs are mainly daffodils with a few tulips, crocus, and iris. The daffodils are just now getting buds that haven't yet opened. The crocus have leaves but no buds yet.
We are moving in a week but will have access to this house for a month or two (not trying to sell it yet) so should I try to move them while they are blooming or after the blooms fall or wait as long as I possibly can to let them store up as much energy as possible? How much difference will it make?

(I'm tempted to do it sooner since it will be more difficult to find them once everything else starts growing - but it will be impossible to plant each one at the same depth since they aren't all at the same depth now).

The iris won't be blooming for a while yet and are just now sending up shoots so what about them? I'm in the East Tennessee Valley.

THANKS! My husband thinks I'm nuts for wanting to dig up all these bulbs, but there are probably 100-200 spread around, and our new house has no landscaping/gardening to speak of.



Doug says: which is best? My .02 and this rarely happens I note - is that I agree with your husband. (yeah, I know that's not what you're looking to hear) So read the rest.

200 bulbs is worth 30-50 bucks. That's a ton of digging and messing about for that amount of money. Personally, I'd take the money and invest in new bulbs in new colors and forms to brighten up the new place. I'd spend the time on other things in the move. Unless the bulb is a real rarity, (and you haven't mentioned any) then I never recommend moving bulbs along with you when you move.


Particularly when you describe the conditions of the move. You're likely going to lose a bunch of them for one reason or other - there's no such thing as a guarantee of moving a flowering bulb successfully. And they likely won't flower the next year for you (after having been stressed by the move) so you'll be depriving your current house occupants of the flowers and you won't get them either.

Far better to leave them flowers and you plant new ones so you get flowers as well.

And moving the bulbs will reduce or eliminate this year's flowers as well because of the stress, bent flower stems etc.

Moving them is a no-winner for all concerned (except you do some work for $50 of bulbs). Leaving them - spending the time elsewhere on important moving stuff - gives everybody a win-win situation with flowers next spring.

But yes, you can move them now or later if you want to do the work. Which is best - six of one and half dozen of the other.

Doug

p.s. want colour this year? Use summer flowering bulbs and annual flowers in combinations.