Seasonal Tips - Spring Bulb Care

Preparations for Winter

If you have bulbs that were planted later in the year (late October – November) you should apply a light mulch to the surface. This may prevent the ground from freezing and should give them a bit more time to set out roots. If it has been a warm fall, and the bulbs were planted early (September) then no mulch will be needed. It’s always a challenge when planting bulbs in our area, as you want them to put out good roots for a spring start, but not too many to encourage shoot growth, which will freeze and damage the bulbs.

Spring Care

When March rolls around, and the weather starts to warm up, remove the mulch as soon as you see shoots. If you have a lot of mulch, just pull it away from around the bulbs rather than taking up all of your mulch. You may need to remove mulch from early bulbs (such as crocus) when snow is still on the ground. If you find that small four-legged pests are bothering your bulbs, put chicken wire on the ground. Your plants and bulbs will grow through this, but the pests shouldn’t be able to dig them up.

Watering and Fertilizing

Spring is usually a wet time of the year for us, so if you must water, be sure not to get water on the flowers or leaves of your bulbs. This will encourage rots and fungus, and kills bulbs fairly quickly. If you suspect your bulbs have picked up a fungus, apply a good fungicide to all the affected plants.

When the blooms have faded, trim off the flower stalk, but leave the leaves! These will feed the bulb for next year’s blooms. Don’t trim off leaves until they have died back to the ground.

Once the bulbs have finished blooming, apply a good generally fertilizer to help the bulb store up energy for next year’s plants and blooms. This is the time of year to fertilize your bulbs (after the blooms are gone, but before the leaves have died).

Other Spring Care

If you suspect that you have slugs, treat those early as well. It’s much easier to eliminate tiny slugs before they’ve done damage, than it is to control adult slugs. Slugs will hatch as soon as the weather warms, so put out slug baits now to get as many as you can.

Be careful using insecticides or other poisons to get rid of bugs, as these will kill the good bugs as well as the bad. For example, ladybugs are good bugs, as their larvae will feast on bad bugs and their young. You can buy ladybugs and other helpful bugs either through the internet or at high-scale garden centers (be sure to call before you go, to make sure they have the bugs you want). Some garden centers will special order bugs for you – ask and you may be surprised at how many organic options you have!

Remember to keep track in your garden journal of how your bulbs did, and where they are. This will help eliminate guess-work when planting new plants, and help you keep track of bulbs should you decide to move them to a new location in the fall.