The daffodils, and soon the tulips, are finishing blooming. What now? What do you do with the faded flowers ? Cut them all off, dig them out of the ground or just leave them? We discuss facts and fables and give tips on how to successfully make your flower bulbs bloom again.
Faded bulbs: don't cut everything off
A spontaneous reaction of many people is to cut everything off. Flowers, leaves, everything. Because it doesn't really look nice, those faded bulbs, let's be honest. But let's intervene right away. Cutting everything off is about the worst thing you can do in the case of faded flower bulbs. Cutting away faded flowers is fine , because then the bulb doesn't put energy into forming seeds. But you leave the leaves, we sometimes call them the solar panels of the flower bulbs. They absorb energy from sunlight and convert it into food for the bulb. All the goodies in the leaves must therefore be put back in the bulb - if you want to see flowers next year.
Braiding faded bulbs?
We've said it before, it doesn't always look attractive when the leaves of faded bulbs turn dry and brown. But we've found a trick for that. In the case of faded daffodils, you can braid the leaves. Braid? Yes, you can keep them together that way until they're completely wilted. That way they don't fall open and it looks a bit nicer. If you have a whole field full of them, that's of course difficult, we know, but planting a few here and there is easy to do.
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In this video Angelo explains what to do with faded tulips and daffodils .
And what about faded tulips?
We treat tulips in the garden as annual flowers. Every year we plant new ones and pick them to keep in a vase. We also pull the bulb out of the ground , because we know that the flowers will become smaller and smaller or simply not come up the following years. Botanical tulips are a different story, they can of course just stay there. But the faded cultivated varieties, they all go out. If you still want to give them a chance, only cut away the faded flower and keep - just like the daffodils - the leaves so that all the energy can go back to the bulb. It is often said that the bulb must be dug up, but that is not always necessary. Leave them there and see what will happen next year. Flowers, yes, but much smaller.
