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Planting, Growing, and Caring for Tulips
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Planting
Tulips prefer a site with full or afternoon sun. In Zones 7 and 8, choose a shady site or one with morning sun only, as tulips don’t like a lot of heat.
The soil must be well-draining, neutral to slightly acidic, fertile, and dry or sandy. All tulips dislike areas with excessive moisture. Prepare the garden bed by using a garden fork or tiller to loosen the soil to a depth of 12 to 15 inches, then mix in a 2- to 4-inch layer of compost.
Tall varieties should be sheltered from strong winds.
When to Plant Tulips
- Plant tulip bulbs in the fall, 6 to 8 weeks before a hard, ground-freezing frost is expected. The bulbs need time to establish themselves. Planting too early leads to disease problems. See local frost dates.
- A good rule of thumb is to plant bulbs when the average nighttime temperatures in your area are in the 40s.
- In colder northern climates, plant in September or October. In warmer climates, plant bulbs in December (or even later).
- To find the best dates, consult our fall bulb planting chart.
- Nature never intended bulbs to loll about above ground, so don’t delay planting the bulbs after purchase.
- In southern climates with mild winters, plant bulbs in late November or December. The bulbs will need to be chilled in the refrigerator for about 12 weeks before planting. (Bulb suppliers often offer pre-chilled bulbs for sale, too.)
- If you miss planting your bulbs at the optimal time, don’t wait for spring or next fall. Bulbs aren’t like seeds. Even if you find an unplanted sack of tulips or daffodils in January or February, plant them and take your chances. See more about planting tulips in winter.
How to Plant Tulips
- Plant bulbs fairly deep—8 inches deep, or about three times the height of the bulb. Dig a hole deeper than that in order to loosen the soil and allow for drainage. In clay soils, plant 3 to 6 inches deep instead.
- Space bulbs 4 to 6 inches apart.
- Set the bulb in the hole with the pointy end up. Cover with soil and press soil firmly.
- Water bulbs right after planting. Although they can’t bear wet feet, bulbs need water to trigger growth.
- If you’re planning to raise perennial tulips, feed them a balanced fertilizer when you plant them in the fall. Bulbs are their own complete storage system and contain all of the nutrients they need for one year. Use organic material, compost, or a balanced time-release bulb food.
- To deter mice and moles—if they have been a problem—put holly or any other thorny leaves in the planting holes. Some gardeners use kitty litter or crushed gravel. If ravenous voles and rodents are a real problem, you may need to take stronger measures, such as planting bulbs in buried wire cages.
- Don’t lose hope if you’re planting your tulips later in the season—just follow these tips.
Growing
- If it rains weekly, do not water. However, if there is a dry spell and it does not rain, you should water the bulbs weekly until the ground freezes.
- Rainy summers, irrigation systems, and wet soil are death to tulips. Never deliberately water a bulb bed unless in a drought. Wet soil leads to fungus and disease and can rot bulbs. Add shredded pine bark, sand, or any other rough material to the soil to foster swift drainage.
- Apply compost annually to provide nutrients needed for future blooms.
- In the spring, when leaves emerge, feed your tulip the same bulb food or bone meal you used at planting time. Water well.
- Deadhead tulips as soon as they go by, but do not remove the leaves!
- Allow the leaves to remain on the plants for about 6 weeks after flowering. The tulips need their foliage to gather energy for next year’s blooms! After the foliage turns yellow and dies back, it can be pruned off.
- Large varieties may need replanting every few years; small types usually multiply and spread on their own.
Types
Tulip flowers may be single, double, ruffled, fringed, or lily-shaped, depending on the variety.
- ‘Cracker’ tulip: purple, pink, and lilac petals; midseason bloomer
- ‘Ile de France’: red blooms on stems to 20 inches tall; midseason bloomer
- ‘Marilyn’: large, ruffled, candy cane-color flower; late-season bloomer
- ‘Spring Green’: creamy-white petals feathered with green; late-season bloomer
- ‘Renown’: hot pink, egg-shape flower; late-season bloomer
Wild, or “species,” tulips are small in size, ranging in height from 3 to 8 inches. They are tougher than hybrids. Rock and herb gardens are ideal places to plant them. They look stunning when planted in large groupings.
- For early to midspring bloom time: Tulipa bakeri, T. batalinii, T. humilis, T. kaufmanniana, T. turkestanica
- For later blooming time: T. linifolia, T. neustreuvae, T. sprengeri, T. vvedenskyi
- For multicolor varieties: T. biflora, T. greigii ‘Quebec’, T. praestans ‘Fusilier’ and ‘Unicum’, T. tarda, T. turkestanica
- For a container: T. kaufmanniana ‘Goudstuk’
- For (mottled) foliage: T. greigii (mottled or striped), T. fosteriana ‘Juan’, T. kaufmanniana ‘Heart’s Delight’
- For fragrance: T. aucheriana, T. biflora, T. saxatilis, T. sylvestris, T. turkestanica
- For warmer regions: Lady tulip (T. clusiana), Candia tulip (T. saxatilis), and Florentine tulip (T. sylvestris) overwinter in the South or mild-winter areas of the West (Zones 8 to 10) without the need of a chilling period
There are so many beautiful varieties of tulips. Explore catalogs and experiment in your garden!
Gardening Products
I just picked up a potted tulip plant from Meijer and am desperate to keep it alive. I tend to kill everything I try to grow. :( I live in NW Indiana (zone 5a), and am more interested in keeping the tulips potted. Will this be a problem? I planned to move the pot outside when it warms up (it's supposed to get pretty cold again next week), and right now they are in a NW facing window. I can move them if that would help; that's just where the living room is. Any advice is more than welcome!
Tulips have a life cycle that is based in the expectation that the only way to survive the hot dry summers of their native mountain habitat is to go dormant until the fall rains come. The ones you bought will only bloom for so long in the pot or out of the pot. Aside from enjoying the flowers while they last, your goal should be to maximize the ability of the leaves to store food for next year's blooms. That means giving the plant as much sun as possible, without exposing it to heat or letting it dry out. A south or southeast window will be best until it can be put outside. Once the leaves die back (which they will do within no more than a couple of months after blooming no matter what you do), put the pot in a cool dark place like a garage or basement until September or October. Then put it outside where it can pick up some rain and develop a new set of roots before the winter's cold comes. After six or more weeks growning roots and six to eight weeks of cold weather (consistently below 50 degrees F), you can bring it inside to force the 2015 bloom.
Would it be more beneficial to wait until closer to spring next year to bring them in? I don't want the blooming to be all out of whack, but I'm hesitant to leave them in my garage (no basement)because it does get REALLY cold during the winter, especially this past one. I have a spare bedroom that stays relatively closed off and is generally colder tan the rest of the house. Would I be better off just planting them?
I was assuming that maybe you lived in an apartment and didn't have a place to plant the tulips outside. Given that Indiana is an ideal climate for tulips, I think you can just let nature take care of them....once the calendar catches up with where the tulips are. In other words, plant them outside in late March or early April, in a well-drained location -- i.e., a period when you are not likely to see low temperatures below about 25 degrees until the fall. The tops may well have died back to nothing by then. If so, you might as well keep them in a cool place like a basement until September or October, and plant them outside then.
I received these beautiful pink tulips, my favorite flower, with bulbs attached for valentines day. They immediately bloomed the next day and now look like the leaves may be wilting and yellow/browning! How do I save them? Their roots are under water, which my boyfriend told me the card said to keep them this way (naturally he lost the card). The bulbs themselves are not underwater. Just the stringy grassy roots. On day one they had not opened and now on day 5 they look as open as possible-too open. They are in my bedroom (third floor) on the window seat. I open the blinds for them. Average temp up here is 70-76 Please please help me! I'm so upset about this.
The important thing is not to blame your boyfriend for the fate of the tulips. It's not his fault. He made a very sweet gesture by getting you your favorite flower for Valentine's Day, so that's the memory that should last from this. I have never tried to grow tulips with the roots totally immersed in water. It doesn't sound like a good idea in terms of saving the bulb. The roots must be able to breathe a little bit in order to prosper. If they were in well-drained dirt the foliage would not be turning yellow quite this quickly. You could try to save the bulbs by planting them in potting soil, but the earliest you might see bloom again would be 2016. It would be less frustrating simply to convince your boyfriend to buy you some new fresh new bulbs in the fall and plant them.
We assume you are using a tulip vase? You are correct in that the roots are in water but the bulbs should not touch the water. Once the tulips blossom, you are supposed to cut them as you would in the garden and place in a regular flower vase. You usually can't save the bulb.
thank you!
I was given some tulips already i full bloom and in pots, do I need to repot them into a bigger pot?
I was given some tulips already i full bloom and in pots, do I need to repot them into a bigger pot?
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