Hmm. I've not grown those-- but have iris (which have their own bed, not room for anything else. Have jonquils which are spreading a bit, but other plants show up to be starts after they've faded. If you planted the tulips and dahlias not all in one spot, but spread out a bit, you could simultaneously plant other flowering plants in between.

Hi ezzirah, Long time no see! With each of the spring- or summer-blooming bulbs (or corms, tubers, rhizomes, or whatever), the answer would be different.

Tulips do not necessarily come back reliably, but I have had them return for maybe 5-7 years. What happened was maybe 70-90% came back each year, so that each successive year there were fewer and fewer coming back until finally nothing came back. If you grew any of the shorter, smaller species tulips they can return infinitely. You can plant other stuff over them, but try not to plant any water hogs that would need a lot more watering than the tulip bulbs could bear. I have layered tulips with daffodils, ornamental alliums, Dutch iris and wildflowers. The wildflowers bloom after the bulbs are done.

With dahlias, did you grow the big, tall dinnerplate type dahlias? Those do not come back reliably for me, though sometimes they'll last a year or two. They do not just bloom in late Spring or early Summer---they will rebloom throughout the year or until the heat burns them up if it is a hard, hot summer. So, if yours are like mine, you really cannot plant anything above them unless the heat kills them back to the ground in July or August like it sometimes does with me. (Sometimes they recover, sometimes they don't---they really aren't fond of our worst summer heat.) You can dig up the dahlias in the fall after the first frost, dry them out and then store them in coolish conditions (maybe 45-50 or 55 degrees) to overwinter them if they make it through the summer.

The shorter dahlias called border dahlias don't come back for me as well as the larger ones do, but since I'm in zone 7b they sometimes come back for at least a second year if I had them in well-drained soil and they were well-mulched. I grew a lot of more of them in zone 8 Fort Worth because they were happier there and it wasn't so challenging to keep them looking good.

If you'll list the other types of bulbs you planted, I'll try to help you with them if I've grown them. Some of the ones that grow well for me here in southern OK are ornamental alliums, Dutch hyacinth, grape hyacinth and daffodils of pretty much all kinds.

There is a form of planting bulbs known as lasagna bulb planting that you might like, and your top layer of your bulb planting can be non-bulbing more shallowly rooted annuals, re-seeding annuals or perennials that will share their root space with the bulbs planted at various soil levels beneath them. Some of the flowers commonly used as the top layers in lasagna bulb planting are pansies, violas, sweet alyssum and dianthus. Here's a little info on lasagna bulb planting.

Lasagna Bulb Planting

If you are interested in the concept of lasagna bulb planting, you can Google and find recommended lists of how to layer different types of bulbing flowers together.

Hope this helps,

Dawn

Heya Dawn!

OH WOW! Lasagna Bulb Planting! That is awesome! I am definitely going to try that! Thank you everyone for your kind replies!

I did plant the dinner plate dahlias and some echinacea (sp?) peonys, iris, gladiolus, I basically went nuts in the bulb department of home depot..LOL. Made two perennial beds and planted away without thinking too much and now I am shaking my head wondering what I got myself into! LOL. You would think after all these years I would know better, but I never learn..LOL.

I may have to move those I cannot plant over...

Just enjoy them. I love glads and they brighten up any area so much. I have a bag of 100 of them to plant this week and I am not even sure where I'll put them.

We all never learn better because, at heart, we simply love to plant and grow stuff too much. There's worse addictions to have.

Ezzirah, let me know how your peony does! I planted one last year in my backyard and it never bloomed. I didnt realize I planted it in a bad spot where a lot of rain from the roof washed out all the soil, I thought for sure it was a goner but I moved it to the front yard flower bed and it grew back with green leaves but still no flowers :( Maybe I should just put it in a big pot on its own? I didnt know you could layer bulbs, that is awesome!