Keeping your window box plants after the season is over
boxes, but feel the dying foliage looks untidy you can surround the bulbs with bedding or foliage plants as a disguise.
Keep the compost almost dry in winter and move the bulbs back into the limelight when the new shoots emerge.
Alternatively, you can carefully lift bulbs and their foliage and plant them out in the garden border. Large-flowered hybrid tulips are not worth growing on, even in the garden, for a second season. They may never flower again, and even if they do the flowers will probably be poor. Discard the
bulbs and start again. However, you can plant botanical 'species' forms of tulip and large-flowered hyacinths in the open ground after their first spring.
Half-hardy bulbous plants, such as dahlias and gladioli should be allowed to die down naturally. Then dig out the tubers, clean and dry them thoroughly, and store in vegetable nets or old tights
hung in a cool, frost-free, dark place until replanting time. Label the tubers by colour to help you when replanting.
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