It happens every year about now - those tulips and daffodils that we greeted with such joy in the spring have become eyesores. You may even find yourself wishing that you'd never planted those pesky spring bulbs. Because now you get to look at all those ugly yellow leaves lying all over the ground.
You can't cut them off, because if you do you will be robbing the bulb of needed energy that it absorbs from the sun. You DO want flowers next spring, don't you? So you need to learn a way to cope with this seasonal eyesore instead.
Some people are terminally tidy - they actually sit down on the ground and patiently braid all those leaves together. Personally I don't have the urge to play hairdresser to my bulbs - especially when you simply get a fatter, more obvious (but braided!) eyesore for all of your efforts. And I have always suspected that in the process of braiding you are actually covering about two-thirds of the foliage under the top portions of the braid - so you are hiding it from the sunshine.
Those leaves need all the sun they can get. They languish on the ground like horticultural Camilles - soaking up warmth and energy, which goes directly to the bulb. And the bulb absorbs all that good stuff and starts the process of creating next year's flowers.
So what's a gardener to do? We want healthy bulbs - but we also want beautiful beds and borders.
I have one bed planted with daylilies - which is a partially satisfactory solution. Many daylilies go dormant, leaving vacancies in the soil that the bulbs can occupy during their prime time. When the daffs are done, the daylilies spring up and start to spread. If you are clever and plant the daylilies so that they act as screens for the daffs you get total camouflage. If you don't use the screen method, the daylilies still camouflage the bulb foliage to some extent - making it look like you have a few yellow leaves that you haven't quite gotten around to trimming of the daylilies.
Other people use annuals. Pot them up early so that they get nice and bushy and when the bulb foliage starts looking sickly, pop the annuals into the surrounding soil. Instant cover - and instant color.
One of the nicest ideas I have ever seen was in a display garden at a local herb farm. They had a semicircular bed which was filled with late blooming white daffodils and green and white hostas. They were planted in semicircular stripes - a row of daffs, then a row of hostas, then another row of daffs. The daffodils were planted thickly enough that they looked massed even before the hostas emerged. For a couple of weeks the hostas sent up their green and white foliage and you could see the striped effect - which was lovely. And by the time the daffodils started going yellow, the hostas had completely covered them.
I liked this idea so much that I just redid one entire garden in imitation. Only I went with yellow daffs and green and gold hostas. If you really like an idea, go with it - even if it's someone else's idea! Imitation is the best form of flattery - and you can always find ways to make the idea yours.
In shady areas astilbes and cimicifuga seem to expand at exactly the right moment to help you. . And a truly wonderful hiding place for those leaves is around peony plants. Peonies bide their time below ground during the spring show, but them rapidly expand into shrub-like masses that can hide a multitude of sins.
We're not so far from spring right now that you can't take note of other plants that started out tiny and suddenly expanded to take up lots of space. Plant your fall bulbs around them (being careful not to slice away roots.) Given a bit of observation on our part and clever planning about planting, you will be amazed at how easy it actually is to hide that unsightly foliage and have the rest of the garden looking great.
