Daffodils, bulb irises, tulips - take the flower stems and leave the leaves. If you need foliage use, perhaps, seasonal shrubbery.

Cannas and glads produce heaps of non-flowering offsets (usually) and they'll be growing on for next year anyway.

For the in-ground perennials such as your paeonies callas, and delphiniums - after cutting, 'feed me' and as elleni says - leave plenty of leaves.

A general rule: Leaves provide energy to a plant, and flower and seed production take energy from a plant. So if you take away the flower, you are actually strengthening the bulb.

That's why tulips and hyacinths are so full and strong the first year after planting - the bulb farms cut down the flower stem so that the flower will not sap the bulb's resources. The year after, when sold, the bulb is supercharged.

You may have to take a fair amount of lily leaves to get a proper stem on a cut lily flower. Try to take the minimum. They will come back, but flower production might be diminished next year if you take too much foliage. Asiatic lilies seem stronger and more able to handle the stress of cutting than the Orientals.

Don't the bearded iris blooms stain your tablecloth when they drop their flowers? I never cut bearded iris for that reason.

Cutting back tulip leaves after blossoms fall off. If I cut back the leaves, what chance do they have of blooming next year. As they appear now my wife claims they are unsightly, however I feel they will lose nourishment for next year. Please advise!!

Don't do it! Leave the foliage until it yellows. If you cut it off while it is still green your bulbs will be weakened because they cannot photosynthesise. The bulbs will dwindle and you will kibosh next year's flowers. The way to avoid the unsightliness is to grow mixed plantings, not all bulbs. If you had some perennials in the bed they would have hidden the bulb foliage by now.

If I cut back the leaves, what chance do they have of blooming next year.
Are they named varieties? Do you know the names of them? Many, in fact most, tulips are more like annuals than perennials.

Only certain cultivars will reliably bloom for many years, and even multiply.

I think that Divisions 4, 11, and 13 from this list, will be perennial.

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: About Perennial tulips at White Flower Farm

Don't bring lilies indoors if you have cats. Lilies kill cats. I won't even grow lilies in the yard for fear of blowing pollen.

Tulips, daffodils and other bulb plants grow flowers from the bulbs established the year before. Dutch growers mow the flowers off to nourish the bulbs. Never cut the leaves unless you want an annual. I fertilize with bone meal after the blooms have dropped as this is when the bulbs develop for next year.

Jon