conace55,

Good question! I hope skybird or someone knowledgeable chimes in here. I'm not, I'm just feeling chatty! I saw them, too, and they were hard to pass up!
Is your ground too hard/frozen to work?
I think if they haven't started sprouting you could put them in the refrigerator till spring. There's a chance they'll think they've been through winter in your fridge and you can plant them in spring. How/where are you storing them? If they're getting green growth on them you may have to pot them. I don't think they'll bloom without a cold period, though. I seem to remember 8-12 weeks of chilling was required for daffs to bloom.

Barb

Hi guys,

I saw your post earlier, Connie, and was planning to reply, but since I only managed to get a couple hours sleep last nite I've sorta morphed into an inert substance today and have been ignoring the computer ever since you first posted! Let's see if I can stay coherent enough to do a post!

You can plant them ANY time when the ground is thawed and it's bearable to work outside! I hope you've been keeping them COLD--as Barb said. If they've been stored warm and are starting to grow, I agree with Barb that it would probably be best to stick them in pots--and then put them outside in the cold or in a cold garage or shed till they start growing for real. If have been warm, get them into the cold gradually, like start with cold garage, maybe covered, and after a week or so, could move outside to a protected spot, I think in the shade for now.

I got a LOT of bulbs during the Van Engelen fall sale, got about half of them in the ground before it got too cold out, and am hoping to get a bunch more in in the next couple days that are supposed to pretty nice--hope the wind dies down tomorrow! I haven't checked lately, but I'm pretty sure the soil is thawed in at least some of the places I'm planning to plant. Then I'm gonna just keep working on it little by little till I get the rest of them in. If they've been stored cold, that should be plenty of cold stratification for them, and while they won't have as much time to root out as the ones that are already planted, I expect them to be fine. Could possibly bloom a little bit later than if they had been planted sooner! Mine have been stored in the corrugated shipping box, in the garage--which has gotten really cold, with some heavyweight blankets thrown over them. Storing in the fridge, if you have room, works too!

Now, having said all that---is there any chance you'd like some more bulbs??? How about some variety! I had been planning to post this for a couple months now, but when it got too cold out to be planting I procrastinated and just never got it done!

I still have some really cheap bulbs available from the Van Engelen order--that I simply don't have enough room to plant! Here are the possibilities!

Chionodoxa forbesii
15 for 1.90 (have 3 left)

Eranthus hyemalis
15 for 2.60 (have 2 left)

Ipheion uniflorum
10 for 1.40 (1 left)

Iris reticulata "Rock Garden Mixture
10 for 1.50 (6 left)

Geranium tuberosum
10 for 1.90 (7 left)

Muscari 'Valerie Finnis"
10 for 2.50 (1 left)

Tulipa dasystemon - species tulip!
10 for 1.70 (1 left)

Narcissus 'Faith' - pink daffodil
10 for 7.85 (1 left)

Asiatic Lily 'Monte Negro'
1 for 1.95 (1 left)

Chinese Lily 'Pink Perfection'
1 for 2.25 (1 left)

The above prices are what I paid for them plus the shipping charges pro rated for the quantities! (I got most of these when the prices were 25% off--the prices later dropped to 40% off and that's what's shown on the picture pages, so the prices shown don't reflect what I paid for most of them! I didn't want to wait till the prices dropped further, because I was afraid they'd be sold out and I wouldn't get any--and a couple of them were sold out by the time the really cheap prices came along!)

If ANYBODY is interested in any of these, just let me know! You can either pick them up at my place, 120th and Colorado Blvd. in Thornton, or I will mail them to you for whatever the postage costs me to mail them! CONNIE, since this is your thread, you get first dibs on them if there are any you want!

If anybody wants any, email me if you already have my address or PM me thru GW!

If you think that's a lot of bulbs, you should see how many I kept! I'm gonna be in Bulb Heaven come spring! :-)

Because of my current brain-dead state, let me know if I said anything above that doesn't make sense! And, Connie, if you have any other questions about what to do with the ones you already have, let me know.

Skybird

Thanks Barb and Skybird. Yes, they were in the cold garage. After reading your posts, I went back to look at them. Some of them have indeed started to sprout. I will put those in a pot and put the others in the ground. Hopefully I can get to it this weekend. I work full time so can only get into the yard on the weekends..... looking forward to longer days and the time change.
Thankyou Skybird for your offer. Although I would love to have more bulbs, and a bigger variety, I'll be doing good to get these into the ground (sigh). 50 tulips and 25 daffodils. At least I didn't put out much in the way of money for them.

Connie

Connie,

Since they have been kept cold, if it's just a little bit of the tips starting to grow that you can see, and if you are able to get them into the ground soon (next couple weeks), I recommend still planting them directly in the ground. If they had been kept warm and the growth was over an inch or two long, then I'd say go with the pot! They'll probably do better in the ground--more even temps and moisture, and they'll be able to start establishing where they're gonna be and not need to be disturbed when they're transplanted later. One of the things I got from Van Engelen had the beginnings of growth showing already when I got them, and they've been planted in the ground like the rest of them. At some point with fall planted bulbs it becomes "normal" for them to want to start to grow, and if yours have been kept cold, that's probably what they're doing! If there's TOO much green growth, I "think" it could rot if planted outside at the "proper" planting depth. (In a pot you could plant them more shallowly and control the moisture better to be sure they don't stay too wet.) So definitely put them in the ground if that's possible. Looks like it's gonna be in the upper 50's and sunny on Saturday, with fairly warm overnite temps for the next few nites, so hopefully you can get them in then.

It's nice and warm and sunny up here in Thornton right now, but still way too windy to feel like going out and digging in the dirt! Hope the wind dies down this afternoon. The temp up here last nite only got down to 41, so I'm not really worried about having frozen soil.

The sunset is back to after 5:00 again and we're picking up 2-3 minutes a day now, so it shouldn't be long till it starts feeling Springy out!

Looking forward to Spring Color,
Skybird

Thanks Skybird. Those were just the words I wanted to hear. They are just tips, so I think that I'll take a chance and put them all into the ground. If they don't bloom, maybe I'll have learned a lesson and not buy those "bargains" at the end of the season (nah, I still will). This year our yard seems to have gotten more snow each time I thought the snow was melted enough to dig without making a huge muddy mess.

Connie

Its been so warm and dry down here that my daffodils with a southern exposure are already 3" high -

And my crocus are already a couple inches high! But they always start coming up in about late November! When I took a walk outside today and pushed back the mulch by some of the "new stuff" I planted, I found one of the Iris reticulata is already coming up--but not thru the mulch yet! I Didn't see any of the (old) dafs yet, but didn't look too closely at them! (Didn't even bother to check the newly planted ones since I'm expecting them to be a little bit later than the established ones.) But the dafs usually start coming up pretty early for me too! REALLY can't wait till spring to get to see all this stuff blooming!!! It stayed too windy for me to plant today, so I didn't get any more in! Fingers crossed for tomorrow and/or Saturday! I checked the soil and it is definitely not frozen!

Good luck with your planting, Connie! Have fun!

Skybird

Got them all planted this morning! One more question. If it is, indeed, too late for these particular bulbs to be planted and they don't come up and/or bloom this year, will they come back next year?

Connie

I'd be VERY surprised if they don't bloom "normally" in spring, possibly a bit late, but I doubt that even that will happen. Regardless of what they do this year, the dafs will for sure be back next year, bigger and better. I don't grow tulips, and I've heard/read that they tend to "go downhill" gradually year after year rather than getting Bigger and Better, and since I don't have any experience with them, I'm not sure what to predict for the future--but I WILL predict that you'll be very happy with them this spring!

I've planted crocus and dafs WAY later than this! One year I had some laying in the garage till early spring! When I finally got around to them they looked very unhappy, but I decided to stick them in anyway. I didn't get much that year--my perennials were already starting to grow!--but they now look like they had never been abused in the first place! (Just not sure about tulips!)

I got some more in today--and still have a hundred to do yet! Had trouble making myself get up and get out! It didn't look that nice out! But when I did get out there, it was glorious! SO nice to be out in the dirt again! And it was warmer than it looked and I almost came in to put shorts on at one point, but since the sun still goes down pretty early I knew it would cool fairly quickly and decided to just stay too hot for a little while! The crazy thing for me planting bulbs--or anything, is that it would take 5-10 minutes to plant the bulbs, and another 5-10 to get the compost and Fix Up the soil---BUT---it actually takes me an hour and a half to plant a few bulbs by the time I dig thru the multiple layers of cottonwood roots! Planted some lily bulbs which go about 8" deep--and had to go thru FIVE layers of roots to get the hole deep enough! ***SCREECH*** It SHOULD be so simple! Oh, well! I'll get done sooner or later! Looks like it should be nice again later in the week. 150 down -- and 120 to go!

You must update us later in spring to let us know how they do! It'll be good info for other folks who buy them and leave them laying around! If I have a problem with any of mine I'll come back to report it, but I'm not expecting any problems. Just lots of pretty flowers!

Can't wait for Spring to Sprung!

Skybird

I have a bed of daffodils that is way over-croweded, and for years I kept trying to remember to dig and separate them in the fall, but never got around to it. So a couple years ago, I did this in June, just as the foliage was dying down.

It was a real mess - the bulbs were all stunted, in the process of dividing so were very fragile, but I went ahead and divided and replanted chunks and pieces elsewhere, figuring most of them would die. Two years later, the vast majority are happy and blooming. To the point that the half-bucket of tiny, broken bulbs that I just chucked into the flower bed when I was done, several of those took root and survived.

I also have a bed of 'naturalizing' tulips, which I guess are one of the original wild strains. That thing is a weed.

Connie and skybird, I'm jealous! My outdoor activity this weekend involved shovels, but also a waterline and a backhoe. No plants were involved. Thankfully we dodged a bullet, a $300 bill instead of the $3,ooo bill I was expecting. One of these days I'll be able to get the rest of my bulbs planted!

David, it's good to know how tough bulbs are.

Update: They all came up. The daffodils are blooming and so beautiful and cheery! The tulips have also come up but are not yet in bloom. I usually try to get the later blooming tulips, so I still expect to get blooms on them too. Thanks for encouraging me to go for it!

How did yours do Skybird?

Connie

Yay, spring! Back in January, I planted the tulip bulbs that I got from the fall swap- red/yellow Helmar(?) and the plain yellow ones. They are up and should bloom in the next few days. I am looking forward to their splash of color!

My dafs from a garden center must have been duds. No sign of 'em.

Oh, Connie! I have had an absolutely glorious spring so far! Wish I could post the pics I've been taking, but I have way too much going on right now to try to get my whole Picasa mess up and working again--and then get probably about a thousand new pics downloaded, edited, and made ready to post! They'll be along---sometime!

Both my snow crocus and the regular crocus finished blooming about a month ago. sometimes the snow crocus gets a second flush, but it looks like that's not gonna happen this year--probably the heat! Of the things I planted this past fall and winter, the dwarf Iris, Iris reticulata, finished blooming over a month ago--it was the first of the new things.

The Eranthus hyemalis has been done for a couple weeks now. First time I ever saw those, and they're pretty, bright, cheery things! Glad I have them! When these things started coming up they looked like some kind of weed seedlings--and I almost started pulling them out! Eeeek! Just in time I remembered I had planted something there--and I waited to see what was coming up. They come up flowers first so when they start to bloom all you see are the bright yellow flowers!

The Chionodoxa forbesii have been blooming for two or three weeks now, and I love them! Also the first time I had grown them, and they're much more "striking" than in the Van Engelen picture! I'll be getting more of some kind of Chionodoxa this fall! And the Squirrelus obnoxiousii were digging DEEP where the one little patch of these were planted, so apparently some of them were converted into Dinner! Next year I want a DENSE patch of them somewhere--and it'll be covered with wire after planting! The Chionodoxa come up flowers first too, so there's nothing at all to hide the pretty little flowers!

I planted my species tulips all the way around the base of my rhubarb, thinking they'd bloom before the rhubarb leafed out--and I still think that's gonna work in "normal" years, but this year the rhubarb is leafing out FAST, and, while I can see the tulips, which are now blooming, the rhubarb leaves are trying mightily to obliterate them! What surprised me about the tulips was that the foliage came up and just kept growing with no indication of flowers! I was starting to wonder if they were gonna bloom at all! Then I finally spotted buds, and it didn't take long after that for flowers--and the delightful thing about them is that there are several flowers on each stem! Wasn't expecting that!

My 'Valerie Finnis', the pale blue grape hyacinths, have been blooming for a couple weeks and are getting near their end too. I LOVE the color! And the foliage on that variety seems to be "bigger" than the "standard" grape hyacinths. I hope they multiply like the regular purple ones because I really want more of them, and they'd look really good if they grew "into" each other so there'd also be a solid patch of them.

What else! My "pink" 'Faith' daffodils are pretty--but they really aren't very pink! That was a disappointment---but they ARE pretty! And I got another daf that I didn't post above because I only got a few of them--it's a kind of "ruffled" double one that looked real pretty in the pic, but I'm not all that impressed with it! My "old" daffodils are blooming or done blooming! Some of my oldest dafs are going downhill! Part of that has to be because they don't get enough sun, and I think part of it is because they were planted in the REALLY heavy clay before I had any compost when I really was pretty much just planting in the soil as it was and hoping for the best! A couple days ago I reported the dying cottonwood trees in the yard of the "abandoned" house behind me to City Code Enforcement, and "if" they come and take them down I'll finally have more sun, and (whether they take the trees down or not) I love dafs and I will definitely be buying more in this year's Van Engelen sale!

The Ipheion uniflorum 'Rolf Fiedler' just started blooming today! Very pretty! The flowers are not as big as I was expecting, but the light blue color is VERY pretty! Again, I wish I had planted them even closer together--and that's after planting them MUCH closer together than was recommended! I also have some of the white Ipheion, but they were another thing that the squirrels tried--I think somewhat successfully--to turn into dinner or dessert, and the soil was completely Squirrel Rototilled, so whatever is left of those bulbs are coming up later and will probably be a couple weeks before I see any flowers on the white ones.

AND! Most of the ones I just described were the "first" batch I had planted of each of those things! The second batch was planted much later---or---hasn't been planted yet! Yes! I'm STILL planting some of them! When it finally got too warm to keep them in the garage I "condensed" them and stuck them in the fridge! I'm still working on them. The last couple things I planted took me a couple weeks! They got planted about 2' away from one of those wonderful cottonwood trees (immediately on the other side of my fence) and it took me THAT long to get thru the roots--some of them up to 4-5" in diameter! I cut out anything smaller than an inch--and "treated" anything bigger than that! Oh, how I hope they take those trees down! I know The Roots will fight back for several years, but they can't keep on keepin' on forever! (Especially when I'm "treating" them!!!) I'm not sure about this, but I still do expect the things that I'm just planting now to bloom, at least to some extent. And they'll be in to grow and bloom next spring even better.

The tulips I got from TreeBarb at the last swap started blooming a couple days ago. They are The World's Most Perfect Color! They're a DEEP burgundy, and I absolutely, positively, completely love it! And I planted them against my light colored shed, so they show up beautifully! (Thank you, Barb! They're wonderful!)

I don't have any Galanthus yet, and definitely need to get some of those this fall! I am SO going to need to tie at least one of my hands behind my back this fall when Van Engelen has their sale! I am SO loving looking at all these new bulbs that if I'm not careful I'll fill my whole yard up with bulbs and won't have room for my much loved perennials! (Let's see! Maybe if I buy that abandoned house I could tear down the fence--and the house, and plant the whole lot with flowers!!!)

And I have so many other things blooming already--early--that I can hardly believe it. Perennial candytuft, 'Waterperry' creeping veronica, orange creeping wallflower, hot pink creeping phlox, three varieties of Ajuga, old fashioned bleeding heart, false forget-me-not (Brunnera), real forget-me-nots, my Omnipresent purple Violas, and more that I can't remember right now. Pasque flowers are done already, and I'm waiting for the fluffy heads on the one species. I can't believe how things are growing this year! Even my balloon flower is a good 6" tall already--usually one of the last things to come up, and some of my Hostas are already an inch or more above the mulch! Those are some of the things I need to be sure I cover when we're getting down to freezing! I think it's gonna be an incredible gardening year! Hope I'm right!

Skybird

Skybird - are you still trying to get rid of any of the plants? I didn't see any takers...but maybe that was a wishful blind spot! Could I put a hold on the two lilies and the geranium? Pretty please?
By the way, did the 'Clips' campanula take?? I can dig up more divisions if they didn't, just let me know.