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RandomChurn t1_jcq8jvs wrote

Your best bet is naturalizing bulbs -- that is, they spread on their own. Lots of different ones do, but by no means all varieties. For instance, there are fantastic varieties of naturalizing daffodils that will give you a lifetime of daffodils, but plenty of daffodil varieties don't naturalize. Same with crocuses, scilla, periwinkle.

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faith5 t1_jcrnta3 wrote

I have daffodils that I dug up from an old home site where my grandmother planted them 75 years ago. The house is long gone and the land turned back into woods, but the daffodils still bloom every spring.

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RandomChurn t1_jcsz36v wrote

That's a beautiful way to memorialize your grandmother ❤️

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Txidpeony t1_jcq90rm wrote

I would buy from one of the places on the top thirty list at garden watchdog.

https://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/top.php#b

I would choose the source on that list that is geographically closest to you—shorter shipping means better condition. Type of bulb is going to matter as well. You need to choose a bulb that is suited for your gardening zone, soil type, etc. Also, some bulbs are just better at reproducing themselves in the garden than others, Tulips generally don’t last long as daffodils, etc.

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Quail-a-lot t1_jcr402u wrote

You might want to put your country and growing zone in your post. Also do you have deer, rabbits, etc and what sort of soil do you have. (Telling you an excellent source of tulips does no good for example if you have hoards of deer like we do)

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flyeaglesfly777 OP t1_jcry46m wrote

It’s Zone 7, Philadelphia, yes I have deer, no rabbits, rich loamy soil.

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Quail-a-lot t1_jcsfi6g wrote

I agree with all of these suggestions: https://www.floretflowers.com/an-update-on-fall-bulbs/

Avoid Brecks! And all the random places owned by the same company.

I would recommend any of the daffodils other than the ones primarily grown for forcing. Some will spread more, but all will be long lived. Your big King Alfred types will eventually make glorious swaths if you don't skimp when you put them in. It takes more than you think to get an impressive show! If you plant them onsie-twosie they will make clumps, but they will always be scattered. Avoid the tulips with deer, they are candy - but if you do have a fenced area they cannot leap, crawl, or shove their snoots into many of the botanical varieties like the rock garden species sort spread well and so do Darwins and many Triumph. Squill of all sorts are an excellent naturalizer. I really love Siberian squill personally. Crocus spread well, may have flowers nibbled off with heavy deer pressure though. Most of the small bulbs will be fine really. Winter aconite, bluebells, lily-of-the-valley, star-of-bethlehem, snow-on-the-mountain, snowdrops, etc. Alliums are also a good pick, but do often take a long time to spread for the larger ones. Dahlias are fab, but need lifting in your climate. Be aware some of the things I have suggested may be invasive in your area, so you might want to be checking on that. Lily of the valley were impossible to remove once established when I lived in Ontario but oddly better behaved where I am in BC. (Probably because they hate the soil, but I'm okay with that)

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loonlaugh t1_jcy26wt wrote

-Ack! Star of Bethlehem is a voracious and horrid invasive. (I guess it is BIFL, because you’d never get rid of it.) Listed in the Invasive Plant Atlas of the US. Known to be especially bad in the Mid-Atlantic, displacing native spring ephemerals and other ornamentals. Very difficult to remove after planting due to their vigor. (Source: a ton of research after I transplanted the pretty little white flowers from abandoned lot to my garden before looking them up, removing them “all” two months later, and have been fighting them for years since.) Please don’t plant Star of Bethlehem!

-Why avoid Breck’s? (She asked while waiting for the Breck’s bulbs she put in last fall to come up…)

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Quail-a-lot t1_jcyiseu wrote

Brecks is part of the "Direct Gardening Association" which are notoriously bad. Once you are on one mailing list, you will get a ton of spam. All of them have poor customer service, terrible shipping issues, and bad quality bulbs. They have rotten BBB and Garden Watchdog ratings, so you don't have to take my word for it:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/1787862/anyone-order-from-breck-s-bulbs-before

https://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/c/183/

https://www.bbb.org/us/in/guilford/profile/catalog-shopping/brecks-0292-90020657/customer-reviews

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Quail-a-lot t1_jcyj7vv wrote

Haha, yeah Star-of-Bethlehem came already planted in our last house. I thinned it out a bit, but it did have some tendencies toward world domination. It was pretty well thwarted by placement next to ostrich ferns and really massive old peonies, but if there had been a garden on the other side of that fence instead of concrete they would have had a hell of time controlling it.

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SkettiLady420 t1_jcqzae6 wrote

How much work do you want to put into it? Naturalizing tulips and daffodils will give you a good chance of not needing to replant every year.

Dahlias are tuberous and if you can commit to digging the tubers up and storing them in a loose airy medium until next spring they will always make new tubers for you.

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rachelowitz t1_jcrfrj5 wrote

Native plants! We got into planting native plants in our yard because they are good for biodiversity. They are also almost zero maintenance, so now we’ve converted nearly our whole yard to native plants. You’ll need to look up what that means for your area, but I have wildflowers in my front yard that come back every year more prolific than the last.

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Mule_Skinner_43 t1_jctr9n6 wrote

You may have to do maintenance every few years. Daffodils, for example, will stop blooming when the bulbs reproduce and are too close together. The fix is to dig them up and spread them out.

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loonlaugh t1_jcy2qzk wrote

I love that you found the nexus of gardening and BIFL!

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flyeaglesfly777 OP t1_jcy48k3 wrote

Thanks. Well, high-quality bulbs can last a lifetime, if not longer.

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Plonsky2 t1_jcq8l8e wrote

Depending partly on which zone you live in and what annuals will grow well in your area. Dallas and Seattle are both Zone 8 with widely varying climates.

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jrobin99 t1_jcq9ptz wrote

We buy from Colorblends. Deer love tulips so that has been a challenge.

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