Hi, this is Yolanda Vanveen from Vanveenbulbs.com, and in this series we're learning all about how to maintain our flower bulbs in containers. So we've planted our containers, and we've got lots of beautiful flower bulbs in there, and they're starting to come up. So my rule of thumb is when a plant is coming up and looking beautiful, then leave it alone. If it has any leaves that are brown, or the flowers are dying off, then cut them out. So as far as maintaining them, I try to keep them looking good by just cutting the dead leaves out, and if the healthy greens are there I leave them alone. So I keep them watered whenever they look dry, and I only fertilize in the spring a little bit when they're coming up. Most of my pots this year I have not even given fertilizer to at all, because they look great. So pretty much, fertilizer is not going to help them. They look great naturally in good potting soil. So never fertilize them into the fall, because you don't want to encourage more greenery. In the fall they need to be dying off naturally, so it's good just to let them dry. If you got something like a Begonia where they're going to keep blooming all summer through fall then yes, give them some fertilizer, especially in mid-summer to keep them growing. But most flower bulbs have everything they need within the bulb, so good compost should be enough. So maintaining them is really easy. It's basically just letting them be a great house guest, watering them when they need it, maybe adding some compost to the top of their containers every year, and then cutting out the dead leaves, but outside of that I really don't do anything to them. So now we're going to talk about how to protect your flower bulb garden in the winter.
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