designed for the way women work.
Moving Bulbs in Spring is OK
Category: Presenting "The Curious Gardener"
After the blossoms on my daffodils faded this spring I decided I had too many bunched up in an area where I no longer wanted them, so I’ve started carefully lifting them out of the ground and moving them to a preferred location. If I wait until fall to do this I won’t know where the bulbs are because their leaves will have dried up and disappeared.
Step One:
Dig deep and wide around the bulbs you want to move so you don’t accidentally slice through them, and then replant to the same depth. Don’t cut off the green leaves because that’s what gives bulbs the energy to rebloom next spring. You can wait and do your transplanting after the leaves start to turn brown if you want. If you accidentally slice through a bulb you should throw it on the compost heap. It won’t rebloom next year.
Step Two:
Lift the bulb or bulbs out of the ground gently, keeping as much of the soil on them as you can. This will reduce root disturbance during transplanting.
Step Three: Drop the bulbs into a pre-dug hole that is as deep as the hole the bulbs were in. Usually 4-6″ deep is about right.
Step Four: Tamp down the soil around the newly planted bulbs and water them!
Step Five: Be sure you are always wearing your favorite Womanswork garden gloves!
Thank you for this. Thirty years ago we planted our bulbs on a hillside we can’t see from the house. I planned to wait for the Fall to move them to a garden I can see from my house, and yes, crossing my fingers that I would be able to locate them. Project for next week!! ALWAYS wearing my Womanswork gloves!
This is great if you WANT to propagate the bulbs. What if you have bulbs that have propagated to the Nth degree and are trying to clear out that flowerbed? How do you get rid of all those bulbs?
Do you want to divide them and replant them? You just dig them out and pull apart the bulbs and replant them at the original depth in a new location. If you just want to ‘get rid’ of them you can dig them out and toss them on the compost.
Thank you for wearing your Womanswork gloves to do the important work in your garden!