Grape hyacinth foliage

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on December 11, 2007 at 3:09 PM, updated December 11, 2007 at 3:11 PM

By George Weigel/The Patriot-News

Q: The foliage of grape hyacinths looks nice for a while when it comes up in the fall, but right around now - when it starts to look straggly and unattractive and catches leaves - I get an itchy pruner finger. How important is this flush of foliage for the production of flowers in the spring?

A: Grape hyacinths are oddball bulbs. They die back after blooming in spring like other spring-blooming bulbs, but instead of sending up new shoots early the following spring, they send up leaf shoots in the fall.

They can tolerate winter temperatures down to about zero without browning out. Snow cover helps protect them. So do leaves. So I look at catching leaves as a good and self-protecting thing - especially if we don't get a good snow cover to insulate the leaf tips from cold winter winds. Rake off the leaves at winter's end once they've done their job.

I think it's best to just let grape hyacinth foliage alone and see what you're left with come March. If they've taken a beating, that'd be a better time to snip off just the brown parts. Even then, I'd let as much of the green growth as you can.

You probably won't kill your bulbs even if you whacked everything down to the ground now, but you'll have a thin-looking bed in the spring. Plus if you do this year after year, you'll harm the flower display.

Put those itchy pruning fingers to better use now by smashing brown marmorated stink bugs that got in the house or by turning the pages of the 2008 crop of garden and seed catalogs that'll be arriving any day now.