If your ground is still workable I think you should plant them. I have planted bulbs very late into December when we have had a warm spell and they have bloomed fine.

Do you think it would be wise to pre-water indoors before planting as I mentioned?

You could put them in pots and let them bloom indoors. I'm planning to do that with some tulip bulbs.

When you refer to letting them bloom inside am I understanding correctly that you'll have them indoors until next spring then plant at some point?

I'm new to bulbs, what if anything does the winter dormancy period do for the plant? If kept indoors, they must sprout up and bloom pretty quickly then?

Scott

You never said what kind of bulbs. That a pretty important piece of data. You can't necessarily treat them all the same.

You could put them in pots and let them bloom indoors. I'm planning to do that with some tulip bulbs.

Hey there Joyce-
So how long are you pre-chilling your tulips bulbs before forcing? I tried in the freezer one year and killed em all- I tried in the frige and they rotted, mostly- I tried in a window well out doors for 6 weeks and brought them in and it worked!
I have tried to keep daffs over winter and plant next spring- they have all died.
I have kept lilies over the winter in soil or soiless mix and chilled- they are pretty tough though.
Frits kept till warmer spring weather died too-
Each bulb type is different. Even with my cold basement- I have not found the trick to keeping most hardy bulbs viable over out LONG winters.
Scott- with out the required amount of cold- in soil- and gradual warming and large amounts of light when sprouts appear- I have found I really don't get blooms- let alone plants to survive another year. You can find out more about forcing bulbs- and your specific choice of bulbs on a google search- I searched "forcing tarda tulips' and this is what I found...

Best of luck-

Julie

Here is a link that might be useful: Forcing info-

P.S.-
I would keep water to a minimum around anything being stored- or planted at this time of year- unless it is an actively growing plant....

Julie

Two exceptions to a general rule:

Daffodils and Fritillaria MUST grow root initials (like very roots) in the fall. If they don't they are doomed in the spring because without those root initials produced the fall before, spring roots cannot grow. Consequently, what usually will happen, if they come up in the spring, is growth will stall and eventually wither once food stores in the bulb are used up.

Fall root initials are NOT produced in frozen or almost frozen soil. Frig temps could be too cold too, depending. Since daffs are recommended to be planted in our zone the end of September, I conclude the best temp for root initial growth is probably around 50F. However, I have been successful forcing Tete-aTete daffodils by planting in moist soil putting in a frig of about 40F, then bringing them out when growth began (about 9 weeks).

Any freezer is far too cold for any bulb.

Julie, mine are tulips and I don't know how the outcome will be. I'm ashamed to admit that I actually bought these fall of 2007! They stayed in the basement all winter. In the spring of 2008 I planted them in pots outdoors and they all grew, or almost all anyway! But they didn't bloom. SO, I dug them out of the pots mid-summer and saved the bulbs (had lots of nice although small bulbs). But did I get the planted before snowfall?? No, I didn't :-( They sat in the unheated garage until a couple of weeks ago. But they didn't freeze and many of them were starting to grow. We planted them all in pots and right now they are on our porch. There is no heater out there so it stays barely above freezing. I'm going to bring them in one at a time. If they grow and bloom I'll be thrilled. If they grow and survive, I'll be pleased enough. We'll see.

Nice to hear from you, btw :-)

How's everything going back 'home'?