I know bulbs such as daffodils feed through their foilage when they are done blooming. What do you do with their foilage while you are waiting for them to finish 'eating'... The foilage tends to fall over and smother other flowers trying to grow. I certainly want new blooms each year. I have seen where some people braid the foilage, but I have hundreds of them around my yard and would not have time or patience to braid their foilage. My daffs are turning brown and about done for the season, so I have been out there cleaning them up. The naked lady lilies are also turned brown and ready to clean up.
I have a million, , naked ladies growing in the greenhouse that have finished "eating". They look like ------.. I am going to plant them in the yard to fend for themselves this Winter. We tried about 4 last Winter even though we had a very mild season. I will pile with with lots of mulch in the fall as we are not really supposed to have them around here. Barb in Pa.
If mine get to bothering me too much I just kind of fold them over and secure them with a rubber band. I tried the braiding thing~ ONCE! Never again!!!
I just lay the foliage down behind other perennials. That's the good thing about having a "mixed bed"--you can hide the ugly stuff behind something else!
OK OK Down the bottom of our front gardens is a bulb garden. It really looks bad. I hate it. Now you make me thing about it. Do I need to put something like a ground cover or a shrub that will cover up those greens of the bulb and dying thingies. It's green and no blooms and I want to cut the dang things off, much like AAnightowl. I can't talk to my hubby about it for he gets very upset with me. :'( He is a silly boy. Barb in Pa.
Guess I will try the rubber band thing next year. Right now they are very ratty, and I am slowly getting my beds cleaned out so they look good again. I think I will put some annuals in there for now, and try to think of some perennials that I can stick in there with them and that won't mind the ratty foilage. Waretrop, not all men are good at gardening, or even interested in learning. Unfortunately. I don't know anyone I would trust to work in my garden. A few friends tried to help me out a few years ago, and they did pretty good. But my pear tree got beheaded by one husband who was chainsaw happy, and other friends accidently raked out a bed I had already planted with seeds. They were trying to be helpful, so I cannot fault them. My pear tree is slowly recovering, so far not much pears though. I wonder if giving them a medium length butch cut would hurt their feeding/flowering ?
Last year I put rubber bands on my daffoldil foliage to hold the leaves upright. It did make them look better. I'll do it again this year when they start looking ratty.
I had to move some because of new gutter going in. But put them in area where not so up front. And be ugly all they want and make babies.But I know lady who braids hers-and add ribbons to braid.
I let mine flop over and hide them with annual "touch-me-nots". There's glads in the back row to draw your attention away from the daffs.
My granny did this: Granny-knots ( photo / image / picture from Droopy's Garden ) Since I do a lot of crawling around, I sort of grab the leaves and twist them around each other and leave them be until they're brown. Then I pick them up and throw them in the compost bin.
Perhaps I will try the 'granny knot' next year also. The daffs and the naked lady lilies both look very ratty right now. I have some cleaned up, but have not yet gotten them all done. My mystery seedlings last year were dianthus and most are doing quite well this year. I did plant a few in with some daffodils, and I think those got smothered. Guess I better get outdoors and get to work. Be back later.
For some reason my daffodil leaves were with me most of the summer last year...I kept waiting for them to dry up...
