If you want a good show of blooms next year, you should not cut down the
foliage. Leave it alone until it has yellowed, then you can remove it.
Looking at the receding foliage is just the price you pay for healthy bulbs
and good blooms. It is normal for it to get droopy and floppy after a
while.

Many people plant perennials in with the bulbs, and let the emerging
perennial foliage help camouflage the bulb foliage. A classic example of
this is planting daylilies with daffodils. Some people bunch up or tie up
or even braid the bulb foliage, to neaten the look, but this is not
recommended because it lessens the effectiveness of the foliage in making
nutrients for the bulb.

I've found that if I focus on other garden tasks and issues, of which there
are plenty, it becomes easy to just ignore the bulb foliage, and before I
know it, it's high summer, and I can gather up the dried remnants.

Cheers,
Sue

Zone 6, Southcentral PA


"Charles "Stretch" Ledford" wrote in
message ...
Greetings, all...

How long after the blooms have faded should I wait to sut back the
leaves/stalks of daffodils, irises, etc? We have a bunch of them, and
they looked great when they were blooming, but it looks like a jungle
now.

Also... they're all leaning down toward the ground, rather than shooting
straight up. When they first came up, they were straight, but now
they're bowing down. I've been out of town for a while, but my wife
thinks they started drooping during several days of heavy wind and rain,
and that that's the reason. I wonder if I didn't plant the bulbs deep
enough last fall.

Any advice would be appreciated.