For you Zone 5-ers:

How late do you plant various kinds of bulbs?

I'm wondering if we can get some kind of consensus for time of planting and success rate. We could use this to rule out planting certain things after particular dates. Ideally a chart if we planted enough things scientifically and kept data (and if I weren't dodging a work deadline RIGHT now).

For example, in mid-October of 2005 I planted Daffodils, Lilies, large and small Alliums, Tulips: all came up.

In mid-November I planted 200 daffodils, 20 lilies (orientals, trumpets, rubrum, asiatics), 20 hyacinths, and a kajillion small bulbs (allium ostrow.., chionodoxa, muscari). Some of the lilies did not come up (3 Trumpets, 3 rubrum). Everything else came up. At that point we had not had a real frost yet (not like this year).

In mid December, during a thaw, I planted 100 species tulips, 12 daffodils, and 100 muscari. All the daffodils came up, none of the tulips, only 3 out of 100 muscari.

All of mine except the alliums were treated with stinky bulb dip, so I know it wasn't squirrels accounting for the later-planted tulip losses. By planting late I seem to avoid most squirrel activity, but there's a trade-off in survival.

So based on my very limited data, I'm still getting in daffodils and small bulbs, but will plant/order no more lilies or tulips for this year (Scheepers lily order due to arrive Wednesday...I hope).

If you think this might be helpful, keep a chart or a list of when you planted your bulbs this fall, and let's compare notes next spring. (pitimpinai: I hope you're out there: you plant more bulbs than ANYONE...!)