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What do you do with ugly dying foliage on taller growing spent bulbs like jonquils and daffodils?
As continuing photosynthesis in the leaves feeds the bulbs for next year’s flowers it’s not a good idea to cut the yellowing leaves right down, but it can look horribly tatty. Leaving large clumps of foliage also makes it difficult for succession planting of summer perennials to get growing.
A neat solution is to tie the foliage down in knots, as seen here in Heather Miles spring garden.
Tying up bulb foliage
Michael McCoy suggests leaving the foliage for no more than six weeks in any case.
And Michael McCoy quotes the higher authority of the RHS in doing so (given that he hasn’t personally conducted any of the extensive scientific experiments that would be necessary to back up such a folk-lore-rattling statement). The RHS found that if they mowed grass containing daffodils six weeks after flowering, there was no subsequent diminution in flowering rates, no matter what the visible state of the foliage at mowing time. This is great info for the home gardener, as daffodil and jonquil foliage in well-watered and well-fed garden beds sticks around way, way too long, as reluctant to depart as an middle-age, unmarried Italian son is to leave home.
Superb!