What do you plant when the tulips are done?

I like to have a full season of bloom in my yard, but the question always comes up, "What are you going to do with that area when the tulips are done?"

I have two large beds that I plant with tulips in the fall. Come spring, they are filled with color but by late May, they are done. Until a couple of years ago, I'd pull up the tulips as soon as the blooms faded and toss them. Then I'd fill the bed with an annual of some sort and call it good. Two years ago, at the urging of a wonderful DG gardener (and an economy that was in a tailspin), I tried digging and saving the bulbs.

After some research, I learned that the bulbs need to stay in the ground for a while after they bloom, so they can suck nutrients from the foliage and develop for the next year. Instead of digging them as soon as they had bloomed, I tried letting the foliage mature and die... which means an unsightly bed for 6-8 weeks. I tried it, and it worked great.

Last year I did the same thing, and this was my 2011 bed of "Mrs. John Scheepers" - bulbs I bought in 2009 and dug in June of 2010.

Hmm.. do you have to dig them up? All the tulips I plant I put 6-8inches down, a little bone meal and leave them there..They come back every year and I never dig them up.. I do cut the flower head off after it is spent but leave the leaves till it gets mushy then I remove it. I would have to go thru other plants in order to dig up the tulip after is is dead so I could never dig them up.. I did hear of people who dug tulips up every year but wondered if some you have to.. I would like to know just so I don't get them...

I have small clusters of tulips planted among my perennials and do not disturb them. Whatever comes back is enjoyed the following spring.

I also plant two large beds of tulips and I don't want to leave the areas empty all summer, so I plant annuals. One year I tried leaving the tulips and planting the annuals after the tulip foliage died. The following spring, only a few of the tulips came back (it was a Darwin variety that is supposed to naturalize). A helpful DGer told me watering the annuals probably caused the tulips to rot in the ground, so I remove them each June.

Ooops. Photo error on my part.

This message was edited Jun 5, 2011 7:16 AM

One year I tried planting vegetables in a pattern in this bed. What was a time-consuming project turned into a less-than-successful garden. I plowed it under in August. Last year I filled the space with 15 tomato plants, but it was so shady, I got few tomatoes. This year I just planted coleus.

Your initial tulip pic is impressive, columns give that area a classical feel. I think your solution this year will be a winner.

Here is a picture of some of my Tulips for "2011"
We had a lot of rain this spring, now we are having a lot of hot day's, but the next three day's are suppose to be GREAT which means I can pull weeds and maybe finally get some mulch down.



This message was edited Jun 11, 2011 9:29 PM

All mine are in beds and I just leave them, but do clean up the yellowed stalks. Patti

another shot. Patti

looking east. Patti

Last one of the a bed on the east side. I have to remember to take more shots from the same spots to compare the seasons. Patti

I am more of a cottage gardener. Thanks to the prior owner, the tulip bed also has reticulated iris and lots of blue/purple blooms like muscari. I never dig the tulips because there are so many other things in that bed. I have to go back to the photos for a reminder, but this same garden has 5 herbaceous peonies, a baptisia that I cut back after blooming, lots of asiatic and oriental lilies and 3 kinds of iris, as well as 2 large rocks. There is also centaurea, monarda and lots of different kinds of allium. I always add nasturtium early in the season and dahlias because when everything else is finished, they will still be blooming.

I trim spent heads and leave the foliage unless they are an eyesore. There is always something growing to hide/distract from old growth. At the back of this bed with terrific sun, furthest from the street there is a row of tomatoes behind attractive, sturdy trellises. Scattered in between is aquilegia and lunaria. Everything in this bed is taller than tulips. I seldom add anything to this bed in the fall because it's hard to dig without hitting a bulb. Because there are different varieties of tulips, they bloom at different times.

I always like to believe that changing focal points is the answer.

Patti, your garden is beautiful.

Cem9165, Thanks, Like Cathy, I love the continuing transition of the beds. The next big change is all the lilies that are just starting. Can't wait. I have already sent in my fall bulb orders, so spring can't be far behind. Patti

Early each spring I plant calla lilies (zantedeschia), which do not winter in my zone. Of course, I sometimes find the following year that some have wintered very well. Their magnificent blooms are not really flowers, but are very pretty. The lovely blooms generally last at least 3 weeks, and the attractive foliage lasts considerably longer.

As a bonus, some always appear from previous years.

Among my favorites are the black star callas.

I think you can see the lovely markings on some of the leaves. I love that black stars have black (dark, dark maroon) stems and edging on the leaves.

Love your Calla's, I came close to buying some around a month ago, but since they do not winter in zone5, and since the store's wanted a lot of money for them, I said no to them.

Rosey, I guess they are a bit pricey. I get almost all my bulbs at Costco. The bags are all around $12.99 (not exact). The cheaper and smaller bulbs may have 100 in the bag. Lilies are generally about 18 per bag, big alliums are usually 3 or 4 to a bag. The calla lilies are 6 to a bag, so I guess they are up there.

I'm not good about pulling stuff out to winter; it tends to rot on me or I just cannot keep up with it. The premium stuff usually flies off Costco's shelves, so as soon as they appear around February, I gather the entire budget and go hog wild. Then I either leave the bag in the car or the garage. About 6-8 weeks later when the soil is workable, I look at all the bags and ask myself what I've done. When I get to a bag with only 4-6 bulbs, I feel relieved that it's all that needs to be planted. We have fairly small yard. I don't know how gardeners with more property get it all done.

Cathy, your callas are gorgeous. Several years ago I bought a few bulbs online and planted them in a pot that I placed on the patio. They were wonderful all summer (lavender blooms), and in the fall, I brought the pot in to store in the basement. I let them die down and the following spring, I brought the pot out to the patio, watered it with a heavy dose of MiracleGro and within a week or two, the bulbs had sprouted. That year they were bigger and more lush because they had reproduced. I repeated it for several years until one summer the bulbs got over watered and rotted. Seeing yours reminds me of how much I enjoyed them. I've made a mental note to try them again next spring.

Here's how the sun coleus look today. The extreme heat we're having gets to them easily, so I need to water this bed almost daily.

Nice picture Leawood

When I pull up my tulips I replace them with things like gladiolus (which I then dig up to put in the tulips in the fall, and store them) with tender perennials grown as annuals, like four o'clocks, nicotiana alata, verbena bonariensis, garden balsam and the like. The seeds from all of these plants can simply be pushed into the ground. They are colorful and low maintenance.

Here is the bed in May.

Here is the same bed in July.

I do not pull up my Tulips after they bloom, I let them die back and then clean up the dead stems, and gather any seeds if any. I don't plant anything on top of my Tulips. I did get some seed from some of my Parrot Tulips.

I think that Leawood pulls up his tulips, as I do, so he was referring to what he wants to plant in the tulipless beds. I water, and the water would desiccate the bulbs. Some tulips do well for years even with some water, like single lates. But when I dig them up and replant them they multiply, and dozens of tulips turn into hundreds. I end up with bulbs that bloom very well 8-10 years later, without the added expense of buying them every year. I really like a lot of color and a very full look, and if I did not plant something in my tulip beds, it would not be appealing to me personally.

So I am not in fact, planting on top of my tulips. I guess it all depends on what you want to do.

I guess so. I leave my bulbs in the ground, because I don't have any place to store mine for the winter, and I get too tired pulling bulbs up in Fall and replanting them again in the Spring or whenever you do all of this. I'm too old, to do all that work, but if it works for you, more power to you. Happy Gardening

This message was edited Jul 31, 2011 5:23 PM

The lilies are just about gone, and the callas have only a few weeks for a few plants. Lucky the echinacea, platycodon, dahlia plants and roses are blooming or we'd be very lonely.

Leawood, I suppose you've still got blooms since you're in a cooler zone, even though your actual weather may be hotter. You've just got a later spring. To keep up with the color, I've got some caladium plants and lots of heuchera and coleus. They are so reliable!

I'm going to try to dig up the callas since they don't overwinter well here. A few do grow the following years or so, but even those don't always make it. I'm assuming they are starting out lower and heave upwards each year.

The Asiatic and Oriental lilies are done, but I still have a few daylilies blooming and the rudbeckia are rampant. Other than that, the only color I'll have from now until frost is the tropicals (hibiscus, mandevilla, bouganvilla) and the annuals I plant throughout the border.

The temps for the last two weeks have been just below or above 100 every day. It's a real challenge to keep everything alive.

Two big beds of tulips! I'd love that. Instead, because we have ever-hungry squirrels and lots of shade, I plant mostly daffodils and species tulips with various bloom times, allium, camassia, scillas and chionodoxa, all among my perennials. I love the feeling of 'what's blooming today?' The daylilies in the sunnier front of the beds disguise the browning foliage.
When we plant on the condo grounds we can't mass our bulbs because there's nobody to tend them (We're in our 70's). We naturalize them or--in our one sunny bed--plant them behind the daylilies.

Quiltjean, it sounds lovely.

Surprise! It was 107 degrees a few days ago and I spent most of the day moving sprinklers around the border to be sure everything survives. Some thing still got crisp around the edges, but as I was hand watering along the outside of my fence, I noticed my Austin rose "Crown Princess Margaret" had put out a single bloom, in defiance of the heat. I had to take a photo.

How funny! It's as though it peeked its head over the fence in a "Hey Leawood, look at me!" moment.