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 never thought about having to look up any research. Many years ago, I reasoned through the physiology part, then looking at the results of the thousands of plants I've root pruned in containers and in the ground confirmed how it all works. This is on a smaller scale, but here's a plant I initially air layered off a trident maple: Getting into the root pruning here Root pruning complete Top quality trees for bonsai require a perfect root base. We either have to graft roots onto the plant or create a perfect root base some other way or the tree is just 'eh'. Note the tourniquet, which blocks the downward movement of auxin and photosynthate through phloem tissues where it accumulates in the tissue above the tourniquet. I drilled 7 holes through the phloem and vascular cambium, filled the holes with rooting gel, repotted the plant. You can see the result. Trees in the ground are no different than trees in pots. I manipulate them in the same fashion, but rather than using a root cutter I'll use a lopper or very sharp spade to sever roots in fall & lift the tree in the spring. Of course, there is an advantage in the timing I use, seldom going longer than 2 years w/o root pruning trees in the ground, which helps to keep fine rootage close to the trunk. I also collect (from the wild) yamadori, which are specimens taken to be trained as bonsai. Often, you'll find a specimen with only 1 primary root, and no fine roots for many feet from the trunk, especially in rocky terrain. If you want to collect those trees, you need to be inventive in forcing the tree to produce roots close enough to the trunk that you can collect the tree. Sometimes it's a process that takes up to 3 years to get the tree to where it's collectable. I don't want to jinx myself by saying it, but I haven't lost a wild tree yet. I guess the whole point is, this in-ground root pruning stuff is a valuable aid when it comes to easing the plant's transition to a transplant site. An interesting aside: I at a dinner 2 weeks ago with a past president of the Michigan Nurseryman's Association. We were talking about "something new", I don't even remember what it was. He said, "You know, Al, we don't do ANYTHING (his emphasis) the same way that we did 30 years ago. Everything has changed, and we had to relearn everything we thought we knew along the way". The man is almost 90 years old, and I was surprised that what he attributes the largest change of all to is the advent of plastic. Anyway, the point is, what was considered a good and reasonable practice in 1987 has probably been improved upon considerably since. Take care. Al

And hormones traveling down from opening winter buds are what cause new roots to come out of cut root ends of transplants in spring. In addition, as alluded to previously energy stored in stems (and roots) over winter is what fuels new growth in spring. So the bigger the top that comes through the winter, the more the plant can grow the following spring. Root loss during bare-rooting (or cutting of roots during balling in burlap) is why top growth of trees and shrubs is stunted the first growing season after transplanting. Plants are integrated systems, just like we are. The more you cut off the less you are left with. When there is vigorous new growth in response to hard pruning the overall volume of new top being added is actually less than it would have been if the plant had not been cut back as much. This has been seen during organized trials where half of a large, ~uniform group of test subjects has been cut back and half has not.

What Michael said unless you're talking about pruning them to move them. If they are very large roses it may be a good idea to prune them back a little to move them. No matter how careful you are you will probably lose some of the feeder roots when you dig them up. Cutting them back some will place less stress on the rose to supply nutrients to a big bush when it has fewer roots to do it with. Climbers in particular may need to be pruned down since those canes are so long. A smaller root ball will have a tough time getting water and nutrients all the way out to the ends. But, I do agree with Michael that fall is not the time to prune roses if you are in a cold climate. Is there any way this move can be put off until early spring? In the early spring before they leaf out you can prune them back and move them with little problem. They'll wake up in their new spots and just begin to grow from there.