Planting and caring for flower bulbs. . .

. . . incudes giving them time to replenish the depleted food supply for the coming year or they wil not flower again.  This short guide explains how to keep them blooming.

How To Keep Perennials Blooming Year After Year

© Michael J. McGroarty

Bulb type flowers are unique plants, and despite their short bloom time and unattractive foliage after the blooms are gone, they are still a wonderful addition to any landscape.

How to keep bulbs flowering year after year

First of all, when flower gardening, flowers of all kinds are best when planted in groupings. When 25 or 50 bulbs are planted helter skelter around the yard, they tend to blend in with the landscape. When planted in large groups, they are a breath-taking show piece

In the early spring, decide on a spot for your bulb bed and prepare it by raising it with good rich topsoil. If possible, add some well composted cow manure.

Over the summer fill the bed with annual flowers to keep the weeds down and pretty up your yard for the summer.

Come fall, pull out the annuals and plant your bulbs to the depth recommended on the package.

To prevent squirrels digging up the bulbs and eating them, wrap the bulbs in steel wool leaving just the tip of the bulb exposed so it can grow out of the little wire cage you’ve created. Or plant the bulbs and then cover the bed with chicken wire or plastic fencing until the bulbs start to grow in the spring.

When the bulbs come up in the spring and start blooming, clip off the blooms as they start to wither. This keeps the gardening bulb from producing seeds, which requires a lot of energy, and you want the bulb to use all of its available energy to store food in preparation of the bulb’s resting period.

Once the bulbs are completely done blooming, leave the tops until they wither and die back.

How to treat the tops until they wither and die back.

I strongly disagree with bending these tops over and slipping a rubber band over them or tying them with one of the long leaves. Plants need time to use the sun’s rays to make food for itself.

The leaves of the plant are like little solar panels, so if we fold them over and handcuff them with their hands behind their back, it's like throwing a tarpaulin over 80% of a solar panel.

The tops need to absorb as much of the sun's rays as possible to begin the food making process (photosynthesis) This food is then transported to the bulb beneath the ground and stored for later use.

For the leaves to absorb the rays from the sun, the surface of the foliage has to be exposed to the sun. When bending the foliage over, you are restricting the flow of nutrients to the bulb. The veins in the leaves and the stem are a lot like our blood vessels. If you restrict them the flow stops.

I’ve spent a lot of money on my bulbs, so I want them running at full speed. When gardening with bulbs, I clip the blooms off once they are spent and just leave the tops alone until they are yellow and wilted.

If they are still not wilted when it’s time to plant my annual flowers, I just plant the annuals in between the bulbs. As the bulbs die back, the annuals tend to grow and conceal them. If one shows through, I clip it off. It seems to work well for me.

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About the Author:
Michael J. McGroarty is the author of this article. Visit his most interesting website http://www.freeplants.com and sign up for his excellent gardening newsletter, and grab a FREE copy of his E-book, "Easy Plant Propagation"

Source:http://www.freeplants.com/