Planting Tulips - Your Online Source for Information on Tulips
Planting Tulips brings Colorful Spring Flowers
Everyone should consider planting tulips, because there is nothing as beautiful and uplifting as the first tulips poking their heads through the soil in the spring. Planting tulips together in large groups of one hundred or two hundred can make for quite a dazzling display. Tulips come in every color except blue, so there’s no reason not to put on a colorful spring show.
If you do want spring tulips, you will have to remember that fall is the best time for planting tulips. And, don’t be surprised if the first spring after planting tulips does not produce the expected flowers. This has a lot to do with where the tulips came from and the temperatures at which they were stored. It does not mean that you won’t have a beautiful array of tulips the next spring. It could also mean that rodents have eaten all of your bulbs, so dig down and check out a couple to see if they are still there. If rodents are the problem, you might trying adding blood meal to your soil when planting tulips. Another solution would be to put chicken wire over the tops of the holes all the way down the rows of tulips. A good, thick layer of mulch will also deter rodents.
Planting tulips is best accomplished if you start out with a plan of where you are going to place the plants. They can be in a large group by themselves, or in smaller groups spread out around the yard. Tulips also work well as a bordering plant, so you can plant them around the perimeter of the yard or on each side of walkways. Planting tomatoes should happen in the fall before the very first frost.
People tend to have varying results with their tulips. Some people plant tulips in the fall, and they burst into bloom the very next spring, and then every spring for many years. Some tulips don’t come up until the second spring but then come up regularly after that. Others come up once and then you never see them again. And, some never come up at all. It is considered normal for tulips to need replanting every five years or so. Still, there is always going to be a yard somewhere where someone has found the exception--a tulip plant that they claim has blossomed every spring for twenty or more years.
Planting tulips should always be done outside in the fall. Dig a hole approximately eight to ten inches deep. Try to leave some loose soil in the bottom of the hole so that your tulip plant will have good drainage. Tulips do not like too much water, and any tulip planted in an area that has standing water will die.
Place your tulip bulb in the hole with the round end in the dirt and the pointed end facing upwards. You will need to find a depth that works for you and this might take some experimentation. If you plant the bulb too deep, they will die, and if you plant them too near the surface, they could be eaten by rodents. Bulbs should be around five inches apart. For the best results, they also need compost and fertilizer worked into the soil. Plant the tulips all to the same depth so they can bloom together. Fill your hole and then mulch the ground above the tulips with straw, shavings, grass clippings, newspaper, etc.
Planting tulips can be time-consuming, but you will be more than rewarded when those first spring tulips burst into bloom.