Late season bulb deals… too good to be true?

 So it's early to late winter and you found a great deal on bulbs.  

But the question is should you buy them?  There are several things to think about when you are looking at these bulbs. 

I’m going to break the bulbs down by type: daffodil, tulips, and alliums.

 Let's first talk about daffodils. Daffodil bulbs are true perennials and can tolerate if you get them in the ground late so long as your ground isn't frozen. Even if it's just frozen down like an inch or two and you can break through that frost and it will be okay because these babies are going down 6 to 8 inches well below where our ground freezes in zone 6a.  These flowers will be fine.   What you want to worry about when purchasing late season daffodils is that they don't store out of the ground particularly well so if you're looking to buy these late my preference would be for you to actually be able to physically hold the bulb in your hand like if you go to one of the big box stores and they have them on like a crazy discount, go pick up those bulbs. Those bulbs should still feel heavy and firm. They shouldn't be squishy, they shouldn't feel like they're just made of paper. You want to treat them like you were buying an onion at the store you're not gonna buy a bag of  swishy onions, and you don't want an onion that feels way too light for how large it is.  That's how you want to treat daffodils as well. It's perfectly fine if they've got green foliage coming up. It might be starting to yellow if they were in a spot where they didn't have access to sunlight. That's okay it will be fine ,you can still put them in the ground, don't bury them where the green is showing because you think it needs light. They need to be planted down 6-8 inches for the long term viability of the bulbs. The bulb will send up more foliage and it will be fine.

Next let's talk about tulips. They store a little bit better in dry storage out of the ground so they're sometimes better off. I'd still unless it's a really really good deal and you're okay with half of them being bad still this late in the season I want you to physically hold them or I want them to come from a really reputable place. Netherland Bulbs and Longfield Gardens somewhere like that where they are pretty good with their quality standards you don't want to be buying from a place you've never heard of before a place where their prices just really look too good to be true because they've been out of the ground since August now and if they were in a facility that didn't really care and wasn't watching their storage conditions you could get some really gross bulbss and be wasting your money. The downside to planting tulips this late is that most varieties need a minimum of 12 weeks of chill hours so that'sSo that's days below 40° down in the round so the problem with buying bulbs this late is especially where we are down in Southwest PA zone 6a, a lot of times we're now starting to hit 70 in February so you plan on now it's January 1st you've got January, February, March, and you need it to say consistently cold that whole time but over the last few years we've had days and the 50s we've had days and the 70s and 80s during that time so it can be really hard for your tulips to get all the chill hours that they need especially because they need several weeks at like 50° to really root out before the ground gets really really, really cold. That can be really hard to hit at this time of year to get that perfect condition and then so in the Spring they're gonna come up you might get really short tulips if this is just for landscaping and you don't plan on cutting them, it's fine. Try it out and especially if you can keep the deer from eating them. If they're in a spot where they're gonna come back year after year if there are a good perennial variety like the Darwin Hybrids or the Fosteriana's that are good for perennializing, just know the first year they might bloom very very short if it gets too hot too quickly and they haven't had the chill hours they need or they might abort their flower buds that's the only other thing you gotta watch but It can't hurt to try when you find those crazy good deals.

Lastly a lot of the time you will see alliums for sale at this time of the year. the blooming alliums you can get some really good deals on some bulbs that are typically very expensive. I'm talking like over $4 a bulb retail you can get them for 40-50% off so that's a really good deal they typically hold really well in storage. They have less chill hour requirements so just get them in the ground and get them deep down  2-3x as deep as the size of the bulb). They should bloom in their first year and every year after that. They will multiply in the ground and perennialize. They're also deer resistant and rabbit resistant so they are some of my absolute favorites right now. I'm definitely going to be expanding my allium collection going forward because they are just great flowering plants. They are very, very low drama. You can either cut them or you can leave them out in the garden and let them dry and just get some really cool textural elements for fall and winter.

Does this help clear up your questions about late seasonable purchases if you have any questions please let me know.