5 Reasons Your Summer Bulbs Aren’t Flowering – DIY Garden Minute Ep.249

The 5 Reasons Your Summer Bulbs Aren’t Flowering

Summer flower bulbs are some of the most gorgeous and beautiful, not to mention easy, plants to grow in any garden.

Bulbs like gladiolus, lily, dahlia, begonia, canna and calla lily, freesia, and many more can transform your garden into a tropical and exotic get away.

But, sometimes our summer flowering bulbs don’t flower and this can be extremely frustrating to any gardener.

Especially when they have put time and lots of effort into placing them into the perfect garden location for part or most of the summer.

Here are five reasons your summer bulbs aren’t flowering and what you can do about it:

1. Reason: Your bulbs may have been planted either too deep or too shallow. If you see lots of green leaves, but no flowers there is a good chance their depth needs to be adjusted. What you can do: Measure their current depth against normal depth needs for that bulb.
2. Reason: Your bulbs might be too young to flower just yet. Typically, bulbs need to be at least 2 to 3 years old before they will produce a flower or flowers. What you can do: Wait another year or two to see if those bulbs flower. You can also dig down into the soil to see what size the bulb is at and if it looks mature enough to start flowering. This will depend on the specific bulb and what normal flowering maturity is.
3. Reason: Your bulbs could be under a kind of stress where they are putting all their energy into just photosynthesizing and not into flowering. Stresses like pests, diseases, or poor drainage could be making your bulbs not flower. What you can do: Make sure to control and manage pests and diseases so they don’t impact your bulbs too much or at all. You can also make sure your plants are healthy as possible by watering them regularly, planting them in the right soil and right location for their sun needs.
4. Reason: Your bulbs might be growing too close together where they are trying to outcompete each other can lead to no flowers. What you can do: Check if each bulb has at least 6 or more inches between it and all other bulbs. Use spacing best practices for each specific bulb that are planted to close together.
5. Reason: Your bulbs might not be getting enough nutrition to develop flowers. What you can do: Refresh soil with nutrients by adding aa liquid or time-release fertilizer, and/or by adding and mixing a general compost into the existing soil every year.

Finding Out More

Make sure to  investigate if any of these are stopping your bulbs from flowering. Use your best judgement and your favorite reference guides (like Pacific Bulb Society, the American Begonia Society, or the American Dahlia Society) to learn more. Your bulb supplier or retailer can be a great resource for more information, too.

We trust Eden Brothers to have the best quality bulbs for spring or summer, and they have their fall planted bulbs in right NOW! Head over to EdenBrothers.com and start adding to your bulb shopping cart to get a jump on fall bulb shopping. Hurry, their inventory is going quickly!

Be sure to use our 15% off coupon code: SPOKENGARDEN at checkout!

Happy Gardening!