Blooming Bulbs
By Jos Van Hage
With the recent warming temperatures the snow has mostly melted and plants are beginning to grow.
This is a good time of year to clean up the yard and get things ready for the upcoming growing season. I have noticed that many of the bulbs are coming up and some of the early blooming bulbs such as scillia (in photo at right) snowdrops, crocus, and eranthis are already blooming or have finished blooming.
After a bulb has finished blooming it needs to die back naturally in order for it to bloom again next year. It is during this time when the bulb is forming next years flower inside the bulb, so you need to leave the bulb’s foliage alone for this process to take place.
If it is messy looking you can tie the foliage loosely to keep it neat looking or you could plant some perennials or other plants in front of the dying foliage to hide it. It is still too early to be planting outside but when the weather warms up in the next 2-3 weeks you keep this in mind.
Another plant that is showing signs of live is rhubarb. This is a good time of year to give it a good mulch of mushroom manure. I have been doing this to my rhubarb plants every spring for many years and it has always produced lots of strong stalks of rhubarb.
Rhubarb plants should be divided every 6-7 years when you see the stalks are becoming thinner. Divide plants now or in the early fall. Use a sharp spade and cut through the root so that each part of the root has at least 2 eyes. Replant the root and allow it to grow into a strong healthy plant before you start harvesting any stalks so you should wait until next spring to harvest. If you have more than one plant that needs to be divided, then do half of the plants this year and the other half next year so that you are able to harvest stalks off the plants that are established.
- Highway 16 West at Kimball Road
- Highway 97 north at Northwood Pulpmill Road
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