Just on the off chance that you bought bulbs to plant and no one managed to sell you bone meal at the same time, my garden buddy reminds me to suggest it as a necessity for planting success. When planting flower bulbs, a teaspoon of bone meal mixed into the soil, under the bulb, will work miracles. It gives your bulbs the opportunity to grow strong roots and bigger blooms.
Optimum time for planting bulbs for spring here in San Francisco is October, but we also need to refrigerate tulips for 6-8 weeks, so mine always get a late start. This year I planted during the last week in February, so we can see if the bone meal did any good; small shoots are already appearing. An overwintered bulb in the ground always out performs a bulb planted in the early spring.
As the bulbs bloom and start to fade, clip off the flowers, and add more bone meal to the soil, so your bulbs spend their energy storing nutrients for next year instead of trying to form seeds. Allow the leaves to die back for the best results next year, as the bulb stores starches made through the photosynthesis that occurs in the leaves.
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