In the fall they may have already rooted out - it would be preferable to do your digging and sorting in summer. And it seems the tiller will tend to damage a lot of them, maybe even most of them. Also at the same time it would be bringing some of them up to the top of the zone of tillage it would be moving others to the bottom - probably deeper than they were before, unless you kept it held up higher than the existing planting depth. You should have done your digging when the plants still had fresh leaves this spring.

With my experience with using any sort of power tiller, I think you are looking at a bulb massacre - sorry :-( I can't see how you would 'lift' them without slicing through most of them.

Instead of the tiller, I would use a garden fork to loosen the soil and gently lift the bulbs. Even this is not foolproof - there will very likely be some damage if the bulbs were densely planted. But much less than if you were to use the tiller.

What gg said - get a fork and some containers to sort them out into.

Thanks everyone! I was hoping the tiller would work but you all bring up some good points. I'll just have to do it by hand with a garden fork :)

lol.. you were hoping more power made it easier ... when all it is is a time consuming pain in the back .. lol....

we all have those dreams ... though they rarely come true .. lol

ken

Yes, even lifting them with a fork could cause some damage. It is also important to do it when the bulbs are dormant, as soon as the foliage died down. In the fall it could be already too late.

Once flowering is past spring bulbs can be lifted and moved around while still in fresh leaf, as long as some care is taken.

Hi floral_uk

the area gets about 6 hours of sun (so in theory it should be juuust enough) and oddly enough the tulips did great! I think I'll take your advice and see next year if the daffodils and muscari come in stronger! It could be because the weather was just SO weird. We had super heavy rains for a few weeks, a freak heat wave (which I think really messed them up) followed by several more weeks of heavy rain

The tulips may well have done well this year but that was due to the quality of the potential stored in the bulbs. But tulips don't always perennialise well so I'd reserve judgement until next spring on whether tulips do well in that spot. Muscari are almost impossible to kill, indeed they can become over enthusiastic. Daffs are just about the easiest bulbs so it is odd they didn't do well this year.

BTW we don't know where you live. Do you get a good cold winter?

Hi floral_uk

i live in Massachusetts in the US we get brutal winters (though not as bad as Canada).

also I didn't even think about the energy the bulbs already had stored, that's a good point !

Well you'll certainly have sufficient winter chill, then ;-)

Oh, may I ask a follow up question of the people on this thread about the bulbs?

since I'm very new to this I didn't realize I wasn't supposed to let the bulbs seed. A few various bulbs did and I then cut off the tops. Will short term seeds mean serious lack of energy storage? Or is it possible I cut them off before too much energy was zapped (many plants still have leafy green leaves in case that's relevant).