I have already dug my tulips as of the last week in May, after flowering but with no yellowing on the leaves at all. I left all the foliage attached which has now dried off and I am getting a good cure and have a three or four-fold increase in blooming size bulbs and a pile of dinks on top of it. My favorite are red Apeldoorns. These will keep nicely well into the fall; so do not worry about storing cured tulips - or daffodils - over the summer. As long as they stay dry you can store them in a corner of the garage just fine. (The Dutch do it yearly by the billions of bulbs...) This is a common way of handling tulips generally getting a two season bed by digging the tulip bulbs, curing them to store out of the ground over the summer after their bloom is done and replanting some other summer flowering plant, such as cannas, which are themselves dug up for winter storage and summer stored dormant tulips are replanted after frost in the fall for the next spring. Quite naturally the beds get re-fertilized and conditioned with every replant and generally also mulched. Some cut flower growers dig their tulips yearly and replant them in freshly worked soil in the fall, very often having surplus bulbs in the process, and a full summer bed for other plantings. I replant my tulips every year, actually about the same time as I put in my fall garlic. What that does is allow me to rework and refeed the beds. Used up nutrients is the most usual reason tulips decline or "run out". They quite naturally get redivided then too, which will also increase flower size and quality. I see no reason not to use a similar technique on daffodils. I use the old window screens in my front screen porch for curing all my bulbs, including garlic and onions, as well as tulips. Works well for potatoes, too. For daffodils as opposed to garlic and tulips an early planting for as long a fall rooting period as possible gives the best results. If your gifted daffodils are cured they also should hold until time to plant them later or as you wish. Dig, cure and store is my advice for your bulbs. Also spraying with something like Roundup is about the only sure way to reduce quack and creeping jenny, both of which are really hard-assed, hardy perennial weeds with extensive root systems. Creeping Jenny has documented roots growing as deep as 20', and every little bit of either will grow a new patch. Personally I would suggest scorched earth until fall for best eradication, BEFORE you till for the first time. Just get your tulips out before you spray anything. There is no safely organic or PC correct way I know to control either of these two weeds. BTW neither is native to North America, showing what accidental or indiscriminate spread of exotic species can do. No mulch at all will prevent quack and creeping jenny, unless it smothers everything, and even then the outcome is questionable, not that a mulch as part of the finished bed is not a good thing, but established plants of fully aggressive perennials like these two will come right through nearly all of them. It will pay you to kill as many of the established weeds as possible, since mulch later is much more effective on the new seedlings that are sure to follow.

I'd say the day I planted mine this year (Dec 1st- Late again!), it was probably nearly 32 degrees, and freezing. The ground had a frozen layer about an inch deep that I had to peel back in chunks to put the bulbs in...otherwise, the ground below that was nice & soft. If you've still got soft ground, I'd say go for it. (this assuming you were talking to me- LOL!)

Here in Zone 8b /9a I planted the ones that were cooled for 15 weeks last week in Dec. Then, another batch Jan 15 (which were only pre-chilled for 12 weeks) Haven't been as healthy this year so dug huge beds and put them in together in 4 beds so far. Also planted 8 inches deep because I didn't know we were going to have such cold weather and was afraid the sun would make them come up too fast (they are in full sun, because the city came and clipped the trees robbing me of the partial shade!) We are having the coldest weather our city has seen in decades (Southeast Coast). We haven't had that much rain though. I feel they need a drink of water, since they are on a; hill and water doesn't stand or sink in so well. Will watering the bulbs hurt them when we are having these cold night time temps (25 to 40 degrees) ? Last year I watered carefully and everything went beautifully but I got them in 2 weeks earlier, and we didn't have such cold temps. Should I go ahead and water them? I'm really afraid of watering when it's so cold.

I have grown a couple of the plants you asked about. I planted currants in Johnstown years ago and had very good success. The soil was a moist, clayey, probably acidic soil. Two bushes each had loads of berries every summer. I found the berries pretty sour, but the birds loved them. I got my plants from Burpee, I think, and they were a standard red garden currant. Very easy to grow. Wild elderberry is very common in PA, and should be no problem to grow. They pop up by themselves all the time in my yard in State College. Spicebush is common in parts of PA in the wild. With reasonably moist soil they should do fine. Only female shrubs get berries, but you need at least at a couple of males. Where they occur in the wild it is often possible to find tons of seedlings that you could transplant. Unfortunately you can't tell if a seedling is male or female until it grows large enough to bear flowers. I have not heard of people eating them, but birds love the berries. Autumn Olive (Elaeagnus umbellata) is VERY invasive and is one of the most invasive plants in open woods and fields of PA. I don't think anyone should ever plant it. However, if you want berries it shouldn't be hard to find lots of wild ones in the fall. Ginkgo is a fairly common street tree. I think you'd have no trouble growing one anywhere in the state.