Tammy, Your experience is something we gardeners experience every spring. I can feel your enthusiasm and it's addictive really... So although you've been at it for a year, welcome to the world of excitement in gardening. It's the surprise factor...and it's indeed funny and exciting... It's like you tackled an abstract art painting not quite sure what you'll be coming up with and the results are surprising.

I just thought it's a rather interesting and good combination having tulips amidst the black eyed susans. In time the tulips will go dormant and the black eyed susans take over and so you've would have hidden the dying foliage of the tulips effectively. You see tulips get unsightly when they start to go dormant in summer and you need other bloomers to 'distract' the eye and camouflage those yellowing foliage.

Leave the tulips in their places. No need to transplant them unless you'd prefer something else in that area. In fact, I practise layering tulips, daffodils and alliums one group atop each other and they all bloom after one another in one tight spot. Looks like a little bouquet and it's very pretty. And I also plant my tulips close to other perennials and it works well.

Ianna

Hi Ianna,
I never thought of layering bulbs. What a cool idea! I wanted to ask you if you dig up the bulbs after yellowing and replant in the fall? The reason why I ask is because, I have a beautiful bulb garden with only a few perennials (rose of sharon, rose shrub, and 2 other plants I forget the name of. I want to put a few more plants but the watering needs are so different. I read bulbs don't like much water and my other perennials do. So I'm not sure what to do? Maybe, I'll just water the perennials individually instead of the whole bed.
Tammy

I water my beds liberally and have not seen any problems with my bulbs. My garden bed is free draining and that means it' doesn't have water retention issues. It's also a thickly packed bed and tulips happily mingle among the perennials. However if you do wish to transplant the bulbs, do it when the plant goes fully dormant which is around late summer & early fall. You can plant them right away. I might add, that in a location by teh mugo pine, you need not worry about overwatering. The tree will probably take most of that moisture away.

My garden bed is packed with salvia blue midnights, seduma autumn joy, rudbeckia black-eyed susans, blue thistle, lavenders, miscanthus grasses, korean grasses, russian sages(excellent in dry soil), delphiniums, veronicastrum, jerusalem sage, filipendula, achillea, roses, coreopsis, iceland poppies, phlox, echinacea, butterfly bush, thyme, lady;s mantle,, etc.... The tulips are in spots amidsts all these plants.