I plant daffodils around my daylilies so the daylily foliage can help hide the fading bulb foliage but they don't ever bloom at the same time to have pics of the combination.

I have lilies and liatris planted with my daylilies. I need some spring color so I'm going to put in some tulips behind the daylilies.

I'm not thinking the bulbs would bloom at the same time but just how you combined them with the daylilies. Do you plant in front of, between or behind?
Daylilies don't start blooming here till typically end of May/beginning of June. So the idea I'm trying to get is best positioning of bulbs so once the bulbs stop blooming, the next flush of bloom color would be coming from daylilies and other perennials. Or if you just do a bulb garden, what do you do when the foliage dies off.
Thanks!!
Julia

I have bulbs between daylily clumps and between rows. Just depends on the amount of space and the set up. Daffs need more room as they tend to multiply. Tulips can be crammed in just about anywhere as the darn things don't last and die out needing replacement anyway.

Julia, I planted some tall lilies behind the daylilies and the shorter ones in between. The liatris is at the end of the bed between the two rows of daylilies. I'm going to plant the tulips in the middle. Usually I just plant any bulbs behind a perennial so the perennial can hide the dying foliage when the bulbs are finished.

Here is Mon Cheri actually surrounded by daylilies. I generally choose to put the daffodils towards the front of the border because I find that the daffodil foliage takes too long to ripen and can stifle daylilies next to the dafs. If you've got loads of space, it may work to mix lots of dafs and daylilies, but both tend to take up more space than one planned on.

Here is Leen Vander Mark, and you can see the daylily foliage in the rear right. Tulips may work even better in the front of the daylily border, as their foliage is less dominating.

Same view of Leen Van Der Mark. Tulips, of course, look best in sweeps, so it's best not to scatter them among the daylilies. But if there's enough space between clumps....

While we're looking at tulips, this is Ollioules:

I used to have a lot more daffodils among the daylilies, but soon found that the dafs multiplied, as did the daylilies. But again, if you have lots of space, which you do, I would just leave plenty of room for each.

Here's a row of Burning Heart behind a row of daylilies:

Again, the dafs are in the front border of the daylilies:

Thank you all. I hadn't thought about the daffs increasing quicker so need to keep that in mind.

mantis: I did order Ouilles. Loved your picture of it. I also got Pink Impression, Red Impression, Apeldoorn Elite, Daydream, and several more tulips. Do you find they don't come back in your zone?

I have quite a few babies from the lilies so I'll be moving some to the middle of some of the beds too since over time I expect they will get very tall and tower over the daylilies. Just waiting for their foliage to turn brown so I can move them.

Does anyone have just a section as a bulb garden? If yes, what do you plant when the foliage dies back?

Any more suggestions, please post. Tomorrow we are expecting rain so a good time for me to plan all of this out before I get outside and start putting markers down.

Julia

Julia, I don't grow any of the bulbs you are planting. But I have learned that you can plant Lily Bulbs around a tree and they won't lean out towards the sun, IF the tree leafs out later in the year. So when the bulb starts to grow, it is in full sun. I hope that made sense?
Kathy

All the cultivars you mentioned are Darwin Hybrids, and I have found that they are quite recurrent. It depends on the year and the location (they don't like to be too wet in the summer). Ollioules has perennialized fairly well. Leen Vander Mark (a triumph) I do not expect to see this coming year.

In bulb-only beds, I find that one can plant annuals if the tulips are not too late blooming. Or use them in a perennial bed: this batch of Pink Impression are right next to an echinacea.

Here is World Expression, which was very tightly planted. They lasted so long that annuals got in late, but still thrived.

I should have thought to use more bicolors. I like the look of World Expression however, yours appears to be more red/white but the description says pale yellow. Does it bloom more white in your garden?

This is one of the places I was thinking to put a bulb garden and then fill it with annuals after the bulbs die back. I've been working to get all the grass/weeds and junk out of that area so I'd have at least 6 x 6 feet of space on one side of the walk and then extend it to the other side as well.

I still have all the daylily beds to work with as well so no lack of room here LOL.

Julia

As I recall, WE turns white as it ages. Starts creamy yellow. I don't expect that one to repeat this year. Rita is quite right that the number that return quickly diminishes.

I've read alot on the whole issue of getting tulips to return. I suspect alot has to do with soil, sun and not cutting the foliage till it dies off naturally. Excess watering seems to be a death to the bulb so I guess, if you water your perennials and plant tulips in with them, then don't expect them to come back. Just what I'm interpreting from all the articles.

Julia

Julia,
I started adding bulbs to a few of my daylily beds where the daylilies are planted rather randomly. Since they don't bloom at the same time they can go anywhere. I didn't put in daffodils just tulips, alliums and narcissus. It really makes your gardens look nicer in the spring. I try to mark each clump with a stick or something or before you know it I am planting something over the bulbs and digging them up!
I also put in many lilies although I was blessed with beetle for the first time last year so I don't know where that's going. I put shorter pot lilies around the front of the beds and taller ones mixed throughout.
We just had a lady came and talk to our hort group on Tuesday about bulbs, specifically tulips. She came from Holland in 2007 where they grew tulips for the international cut flower market. She said your tulips will last much longer if you dig them up every summer and give them a rest in a cool dark place, then plant again in the fall. Too much work for me but I remember my grandmother always doing that. Every June or July her bulbs would be under her picnic table drying out. This lady also said the older varieties will last for many more years than the newer ones. Try to buy the biggest size bulbs you can. And while planting them deep protects them from frost and freezing, the deeper you put them the more energy the bulb has to use to grow stem up that far. I didn't really think of that before. It's sort of a trade-off I guess. Maybe not too deep and mulched?
Many of the tulips I had around my house didn't bloom this year. I think they got frosted as the flower was about to come up. Our speaker said they should still be fine for next year, maybe better as the plant didn't waste energy on a flower yet still had leaves to send energy to the bulb. I guess I will see. The ones further out in my beds did fine and after such a mild winter I found they had multiplied. So did my lilies.
Daylilies and spring bulbs are a great combination as they have separate seasons so go for it! It's like planning the same garden twice.
Debbie

I am trying to put them in between a front row and back row of daylilies.
DL DL DL DL
bulb bulb bulb
DL DL DL DL
I am working on reorganizing some I didn't do this way because they grew together. Unfortunately, I did not mark most of my bulbs so need to wait to juggle them till spring.
I have some tulips that were here when we bought the house 25 years ago, and new ones that might bloom one or two years and disappear. Daffodils and Lilies tend to be a lot hardier here -IF I can keep the squirrels out of them. They dug up one of my favorite daffs this fall and I haven't been able to find them in any of the local stores. I have one place left to try.

I appreciate all the ideas. I finished another bed where I'll put bulbs and possibly a couple of perennials. No planting yet as we got hit with another round of rain all day yesterday so the ground is too wet to start planting but will continue my garden bed cleaning. The temps will be up and down this week with the coming weekend dropping into the 50's. Brrrrrrrr.

Keep the ideas coming and if you have pics, would love to see what you've done. :-)

Julia

I finally found some photos. Here are 2 beds that I have daylilies and spring/summer bulbs mixed in.

Here is my hot(red,yellow, orange) bed in the spring. You can see the lilies and daylilies coming up when the tulips etc are still blooming. Sorry it's not a closer view. The bed in the distance has many bulbs as well but it is a shade bed in the summer.

This is the same bed in the summer. There are shorter lilies at the front as well as some snapdragons and portulacas. With the droughts we keep getting portulacas are my new favourite flower.

My cool bed in the spring. Sorry I couldn't get this photo to upload the right way up. I guess you will just have to turn your heads! Even after rotating it it still copied sideways too. What a pain. Not too many bulbs showing from this angle but I couldn't find a better one. There is an allium coming in the back.

The same bed in the summer

I just bought some more bulbs today to put in. I am glad I don't lose as many tulips as some.
Just some ideas.

Debbie

Debbie: Beautiful garden pics. I like the way you show the spring to summer and how the bulbs work. Thank you.

For the problem with Photobucket rotating the photo. Check your Album Settings. If the box is checked to Automatically Rotate Images On Upload, then you need to uncheck the box and save your new settings. Not sure if that is the problem but worth a check.

Julia

Thanks Julia,
I've tried that but it still won't upload the right way to here. In the album it is the right way up. When I open it to edit it, it is sideways. I switched it to up and down and saved it but when I tried to put it in this post it was still sideways. I will continue to play with it and see what happens.

Debbie

My bulb order came yesterday from TulipWorld. Nice bulbs but I was missing one package of daffs so called them and they are sending it. So it looks like next week will be my planting week as long as the temps stay down.

So, after much thought (bad idea sometimes), I decided to add in some peonies this year. I already have a pink one but decided I'd like a few more of different colors. Then of course, what inspired me was this photo I took when visiting a local iris farm (they grow peonies too). So why not get a few Siberian Iris too. So everything will be arriving next week since I'm getting notices of the peonies shipping and I know the Sib Iris will be also shipped on Monday. I know the peonies will take a couple of years to get the volume bloom but it is a start.

Julia

Everyones spring display is so beautiful. Debbie, your garden has such a majestic setting and you've done such lovely things with it.... So much hard work that everyone has done and so well worth it to people such as myself who sit with our mouths hanging open and drooling....Maryl

Hi Marg,
I don't find this kind of bed difficult. It is when I use many different types of perennials and shrubs etc that I get lost and plants get lost! I just dug up some tulip bulbs putting in some late perennial specials.Ugh!!
Bulbs and daylilies are easy. And I just stick a few annuals basically where the bulbs were. The portulacas now seed themselves although the colours are starting to mix. Keeping it simple is my best gardening tip. I just try to plan by heights(I do have to move the odd daylily that doesn't live up to it's height) and it works.
Debbie
Debbie