Spring bulbs

[Littlemissimpatient]

I'm pretty new to this gardening stuff.
We had some lovely pots with spring bulbs in. Dafs, tulips, hyacinths etc. what do I do with them now? DH has cut all the dead flowers off so they are now a couple of inches above the soil. Id like them to flower next year but I'd also like to be able to use the pots for some summer flowers. Do I need to take the bulbs out or can will the stalks go down so I can put some bedding plants in? Many thanks and sorry for stupid question.

Tulips in pots are best discarded, they rarely do well next year. Daffodils & hyacinths will be fine next year provided you nip off the flowerheads but leave the leaves to go yellow and dry; they will eventually come away. If you have already removed a lot of the foliage then it is best to not rely on the daffs flowering well next year. The foliage after flowering keeps feeding the bulbs for next year, so if most of the foliage is removed there are not enough reserves nect spring for the flower to produce leaves and flowers. Once they foliage is yellow and dried out, you can pick it off easily and plant out some summer bedding. You may wish to replace the top inch of compost before you plant the bedding and after 6 or 8 weeks start to use a liquid feed once a fortnight (tomato food works fine but only use half the strength as per instructions on the bottle). Stop feeding by end of September.

Thank you that's great help

I keep a big plastic box in my garage. Once the pots have finished flowering I empty them into the box so that I can reuse the pots. I cut off all the flowers but as already said I leave the foliage on. I put the box towards the back of the garden to allow the foliage to die down. minimum 2 weeks but the longer the better.

when foliage turns yellowish, cut of any remaining foliage and lay out the bulbs to dry them. check for any damaged once and discard as these will infect the others. Not all bulbs will flower next year, as already said tulips are the least reliable.

If you have the space and live in the south of the country you could plant the hyacinths in the garden. Despite the weather here in essex my hyancinths (3rd year) made a good display.

Good luck.