Gardening Question - Omaha,NE

I have an array of bulbs all piled one on top of the other here from the previous owners. Don't worry about planting more--they muliply greatly on their own.

1) Yes, you can plant on top of the tulips - annual, perennials, whatever you fancy. Let the foliage completely die - the bulb gets next year's nutrition from pulling in sunlight from the foliage. You can cut the stalks down once the flowers drop and then once the foliage is totally dead, you can pull off the dried, wilted leaves. BHG.com has some great garden plans - you can punch in your ZIP code to find your zone and plants that are native to your area, the level of sunlight you have, etc.

2) Tulips do come back but the quality deteriorates after the first year and eventually stop growing, so I would plant a few each fall to ensure that you have a continual supply of great blooms each spring. Other bulbs naturalize (grow stronger year after year and spread), so you really only have to plant daffodils, crocuses, grape hyacinth, and irises once and then replenish the tulips every year or so.

As others have said, yes you can plant on top or near your tulips.

Don't pull the bulbs up. They'll bloom again! I have some that I planted almost 10 years ago that still flower. A couple of tips:
1.) don't cut the leaves of the bulbs off until they've gone brown.. I've heard that's how bulbs create & store food that will help them come back the following year. Once the flowers have past, I simply fold the leaves over and "tie" them with one of the leaves, making a bundle. This keeps them from being an eyesore in the garden and lets the bulb properly complete it's life cycle.
2.) scratch the ground around the bulb and dress it with a little bone meal every couple of years. Consider it "bulb fertilizer". I like to dig down an inch or so and sprinkle the bone meal, then cover it with dirt (keeps my dogs from digging at it).
3.) if you have any trouble with moles, plant daffodils. They like to eat tulips and hyacinths, but won't touch the daffodils.

Enjoy!

Cut the flower & stem off the faded tulips but leave the leaves to replenish the bulb. They should bloom year after year (unless the chipmunks eat them!) but you can plant new ones in other areas now that you know where the bulbs are. I wouldn't plant anything else right on top of them - you want the leaves to nourish the bulbs for the future.

You can plant annuals around them and then trim the dying bulb leaves late in the summer.

I don't think it's a great idea to plant too many perennials around those bulbs - it would seem to me that all the roots would compete with each other. Also they take different types of fertilizer. And, if you need to divide either the bulbs or the perennials in a few years, you will disturb one plant while you try to divide & relocate the other. But a few inches away should be fine. I'd make a map to keep in your file so you know what's where - any gardening book will show you sketches you can try to copy (very simply) for your own purposes.

Perennials are not cheap but they obviously give you more bang for your buck in the long run. Consider the plant's height and color when choosing, and also how hardy they are. Anything you plant near the street needs to be pretty hardy to survive all the salt & sand that gets dumped there by the snow plows. I find that day lilies, sedum (flowering - there are many varieties), and ribbon grass do very well.

You can also plant variegated hosta - the colored foliage looks good all season long, even though the spiked flowers only last a few weeks. They are hardy and divide very easily. I find them a good investment and they do well in partial sun.

Another fun thing to add is a butterfly bush - it flowers and attracts lots of butterflies. There are several types and any gardening center would be able to advise you.

Yes, perennials and annuals both mix well with bulbs. Leave the leaves on until they wither and turn brown to feed the bulb for next year. In climates with cold winters, tulips will usually return for many years, though some types will do this more reliably than others. I have some that are still going strong at least 16 years since planting. Others have performed well for 3-5 years before failing to produce blooms.

Many people do plant new tulip bulbs each year. I suspect that's because tulip growers encourage the practice. Many older types that are less hybridized (still closer to the species from which they were bred), will usually perform very well for many years. Wild or species types do tend to multiply from both seed and bulb division if they like the conditions in your garden.

When choosing plants to place around your tulips, garden centers often have knowledgeable staff that will be happy to make suggestions or tell you whether a plant you like will do well in your garden, based on soil type, amount of sun available, and water requirements.

If you live where you get a decent winter, you can leave the bulbs in the ground. They need a cold spell in order to bloom well the next season. If you live somewhere where you don't get a good winter freeze, you have to dig up the bulbs and chill them (in the fridge, not the freezer) for a few weeks. Or planting new every year will work, too.
Most flowers will not bloom all summer long (although there are exceptions, like marigolds) so plant a variety with different bloom times so something is always getting ready to bloom as other blooms fade. Perennials will come back every year, but I've had some good luck with some annuals or bi-annuals which re-seed themselves (foxglove and columbine).
Keep in mind the sun exposure the bed gets (do nearby trees give it more shade in the summer?) and soil conditions (some plants prefer more acidic conditions while others do not, and does it have good drainage).

You can plant on top of them. We would plant 5 or 6 different bulbs types down. We made sure the blooming time was staggered so we would never be without flowers of some sort. You don't need to plant more tulips, the way bulbs work is that every time they get pollinated they make another bulb. You will have double the bulbs next year, so if you want you can cull the herd if you want, so you will not be overwhelmed with them.

Prune the blooms and leave all the foliage. No don't plant anything on top of them. They'll be competing for water and nourishment.

You can plant more but you don't have to. They'll continue to divide and more and more will be there every year. You can even split them if you wish and transplant come fall to other areas.

That's my only issue with tulips and daffodils, so little blooming time, but you do get foliage for the year from them. . . but not much color.

Oh and you are in Omaha. No need to dig them up and refridge them or anything. They are actually just fine on their own except for during some extenuating circumstances like bugs, animals or a very bad winter (maybe). That is one thing that makes irises, daffodils, tulips, hosta's etc awesome... no maintenance really. They'll pop up every spring without any real effort from you.

I'm pretty sure you have to plant the bulbs every fall. My mom does. And it probably wouldn't hurt anything to plant something new there that will stay pretty until fall. Depending on the spacing, you could plant in alternating spots so that when your tulips fade next year you will have something else popping up beside them. If it is a fuller plant it will fill in the gaps as it matures, but the root area shouldn't overtake the space so you can plant new bulbs the following fall.
Edit- just read some other responses about tulips coming back. Maybe it depends on the type?