I agree with everyone I've started moving toward Colorblends over Van Engelen when possible. Last fall I ordered the same amaryllis from both and some of the same tulips. Colorblends gave me bigger bulbs and more dramatic blooms. I wish CB would list the variety names in their blends but I have not once been disappointed. I ordered alliums from Netherland Bulb co. and was literally stunned with the size, and quality of their bulbs. They are up and budding now. I can't say the same about VE's alliums in the past. I haven't ordered other bulbs from Netherland but have heard they are good and no one mentioned them happy planting! c

I don't know... I see your point, it's more important now to make your house as pretty as possible to attract a buyer as soon as possible. I think I'd stuff some annuals overtop, or if I was too busy, I'd let the bulbs go as long as possible and then just cut the foliage down. You won't be there to see them bloom next spring, and the new owner will likely want to plant new flowers anyway (or not, in which case they won't care if the daffodils take a year off).

Been a long, cool (downright cold) spring - my daff foliage is still green and upright. One trick is to roll/fold down the foliage or gather it into one bunch and bind it semi-loosely with a twist tie or somesuch. It's out of the way and still feeds the bulbs until it finally browns out and can be cut down. Tedious if you've got lots of bulbs!

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.