I've kept them from year-to-year in the containers but with only so-so results.

Better to dig a hole in ground and slip the whole clump into it, deeper than how they were sitting in the container. I usually do this when the foliage turns brown.

You can manage a container of bulbs by layering different bulbs.

You could also do a layered container w/summer blooming bulbs, and yet another with fall blooming bulbs and rotate your 3 containers according to season.

I don’t recommend doing one container with 1 layer of spring blooming, 1 layer of summer blooming and one layer of fall blooming b/c show would be skimpy and you’d have a bare container between seasons.

personally, I don’t do this as too much work for me. But it’d be the way I’d do it.

I keep daffodils going for several years in the same containers. Crocus also keep going. I just shove them behind the compost heap and forgot them until next spring. But tulips I plant in the garden in the vain hope some will come back. A few do. Forced hyacinths also get planted out and keep coming back for years.

Thank you for the feedback. Esp. Floral uk. I know how to do container planting. But my question is the issue of maintenance. I do container planting because I am disabled and digging is very hard. I plant containers and move them around and change them up as the seasons change. I am mainly looking for advice about what to do after they die back. I planted a bunch of snowdrops and dutch iris This spring. Most I just left in the pot, planting summer annuals on top, but a few pots I emptied and the bulbs I found, though there are lots of them, are small so I wonder if there will be any blooms in the spring. Perhaps not enough fertilizer?

I was suggesting layered bulb planting as a maintenance strategy. You get an extended show and other than setting it aside til next blooming season, you shouldn’t need to do another thing, no digging/storing, no transplanting, nothing. I’d think planting annuals on top which require more water may cause bulbs to rot. But if you dont have enough containers to use exclusively for bulbs, then more work would be involved. I don’t fertilize bulbs, probably should but dont

Thanks. Do you plant them as close as the picture? Maybe the extra water for the annuals rotted the parent bulbs leaving only the babies? Will see what happens next spring. I actually do have them planted in layers with daffodils, snow drops, and dutch iris.

Strong possibility, but the little ones develop fast so you’ll likely have a show next year. I wouldn’t plant that many per layer. I think the picture I posted above is a little exaggerated, maybe to make the layering obvious for those trying this for the first time. Since you’re experienced, you have a feel for how many bulbs it takes for the look you’re going for.

I know I need to learn to do this more. Good idea. I could even put them in the ground this waY in a few places.

I do that inground but just w/summer bulbs. Caladiums which are hard workers April thru aug. Then rhodophiala bifida, and shortly thereafter lycoris radiata