Potted bulbs - leave outside or put in shed?

[AntiqueMaps]

Hello

Usual disclaimer: this is my first year of having a garden so please forgive the remedial question!

I've planted a pot of daffodil bulbs and a pot of crocus bulbs. I plan to plant a pot of tulip bulbs next month. And some iris bulbs.

Should I leave them outside or will they get too wet? Would I be better putting them in the shed?

PS - for my first time, I'm doing each in separate pots but will be doing lasagna type stuff in future years once I work out what I like.

Thanks

I leave mine outside, group them together near the house, raise them off the floor (I use bricks) so they can drain properly. My biggest nemesis is squirrels eating the bulbs before they even get chance to rot from the weather!

Thanks @TheOpalReader is there an advantage to leaving them outside? Like is some rain/sun good for them?

I'd suggest putting them where you want them to be when they do flower and keeping an eye on them. If you leave them in the shed, you might forget about them. The problem is they won't be worth looking at until they start coming up.

Can you plant eg Carex Evergold or Euonymus Silver Queen or Ajuga repens or primolas or violas, or a mixture of these, on top of them while you wait for the bulbs to grow? The bulbs will push through, but the plants will deflect or absorb some of the rainfall, and your pots will be interesting. Good luck

will be doing lasagna type stuff in future years once I work out what I like.

Thanks for the chuckle OP. I now have a vision of lasagne "leaves" hanging on branches.

I'm sure in Holland they just plant the bulbs and leave them outside.

I pot all my bulbs and then put them inside the (now empty) fruit cage to protect from squirrels but still get natural water and light. They then sense by themselves when it’s time to start growing. Once they’re of a size that the squirrels won’t fiddle with, I move them out. I’ve marked bare areas in the flower beds to avoid any perennials that might have died right back over the winter.

The reason I only have my bulbs in pots and very few in the ground is that whilst I love them in bloom, I hate looking at them when they’re dying off. But that is when they are taking in the nutrients for the next blooming season, so I don’t want to start cutting them back.
an alternative to the fruit cage would be chicken wire weighed down securely with bricks t detergent the squirrels.

🙄 No-one should detergent a squirrel. That is unkind, and the tv ads for Fairy Should point this out. “Keep away from children and squirrels”.

Outside, they're hardy. Cram in as many as you can, as long as they don't touch and layer for impact. I top mine with viola which gives colour now and pick up again in the spring.

Not that I know of, I just don't have anywhere else to put them so it was a case of wait and see. But they've done fine every year, I'm in the north too so pretty cold winters.

The advantages to leaving them outside are 1) most spring bulbs need a sustained period of cold to germinate and flower well, and in a warm winter an unheated shed might not be quite cold enough, 2) some bulbs, like tulips, are actively more susceptible to disease if the soil is not cold enough (you plant them after the first frost), 3) they get a natural amount of rain, 4), you don't forget them!

If you wanted to force bulbs to flower early you might keep them inside or in a shed.

Correct, in the Netherlands they just put them outside. I'd never heard of people keeping them in the shed over winter until I moved to the UK.

They don't have grey squirrels over there so bulb lasagne is a lot easier to accomplish.

Thanks guys! I'm in Scotland so it should get cold enough!

Not seen squirrels round here since I adopted my former streetcat a few months ago!

They are fully hardy, so there's no point putting them inside where they just take up space inside, and you don't have to worry about watering them if they're outside.

My daffodil bulbs (in a pot outside) have sprouted green!

Apparently Monty keeps his outside but under a shelter to keep the worst of the rain off them.