Kitchen Garden Forum

My Red Riding Hood tulips in my patio containers have just finished flowering. I never know what to do with them - cut the foliage down, leave the bulbs in and plant my summer bedding on top, or dig them out and stick them somewhere else in the garden to let them take their long term change. What does everybody else do? They never seem to flower much thereafter but I really hate to waste the bulbs and their little successors.

Dear Primrose, i try and keep two lots of tubs and pots, so i can feed the bulbs and let them die down naturally, whilst my other pots are being planted up with summer bedding.
You could always plant them somewhere else, but don't forget to give them a feed, i always use tomato feed.

Primrose, I agree with OH: keep two lots of containers, one for winter/spring (then you can plant your bulbs in, say, September when the summer bedding plants are still ok) and one for summer so that you can plant your summer bedding before the bulbs have died down or, in my case, the winter pansies, polyanthus and wallflowers are still flowering very nicely, as they are at the moment. I have done that for many years and it works well.

Alas I don't really have the space to keep two lots of containers going. Do you think that if I dig them all out before the leaves have completely died back, plant them all in a large pot and keep it fed & watered during the summer, I'll be able to dig them out and replant reasonable sized bulbs next autumn? The bulbs always seem to shrink or grow tiny little baby bulbs which never seem to develop into anything.

Dear Primrose if you can get them out without breaking the roots off, and keep them watered and fed until they die down. You can then lift them,and then you should get some decent bulbs to store until the Autumn.