Growing Tulips for a Blast of Spring Color

Growing tulips is easy and a sign that spring has arrived. If you want to tiptoe through the tulips in your own colorful tulip patch, or just admire their beauty, find out how to grow tulips successfully.

Choosing varieties
Tulips come every color except true blue. Tulips come in bicolors and streaked or flamed. Choose some early, mid- and late-season bloomers if you want a long color show. Species tulips usually bloom early and are shorter than other varieties. They may have several blooms on one stem. Most garden tulips, however, produce one flower per bulb. There are lily-flowering tulips that have long, pointed flower petals, tulips with fringed petals and tulips whose blooms that look like peonies. There are even tulips that are fragrant. A good bulb catalog will help you make decisions. Tulip flowers open in the morning and close at night, and last for several days.

When choosing tulip bulbs, look for plump, firm, clean bulbs that have most of their papery brown covering attached. Bulbs that are soft, have moldy areas or look shriveled up should not be purchased. Species tulips generally have smaller bulbs. Economy mixes with small bulbs may have some bulbs that will not bloom the first year after planting

Planting and care
Tulips come from the colder, mountainous areas of the Middle East. The bulbs need a period of cold weather to set flower buds. Gardeners in Zones 3 to 7 will be able to grow tulips without worrying about the chilling period. Gardeners in Zones 8 and lower will have to buy prechilled bulbs if they want spring tulips. Tulips are planted in the fall before the ground freezes in your area. They like a well-drained area and will not do well if their winter bed is waterlogged. You can plant them in sunny areas or under deciduous trees. They will get enough sun in the spring before the tree leafs out to complete their life cycle.

Plant tulip bulbs with the pointed side up in holes just big enough to fit the bulb and about twice as deep as the bulb's height. You can mix some general-purpose, slow-release garden fertilizer (5-10-5) into the soil around the bulbs. Don't add bone meal; mice and squirrels love tulip bulbs and adding bone meal may actually attract them to the spot where the bulbs are buried. In the spring, tulips are also a favorite of deer. To keep deer from eating your tulips, you can apply one of the deer-repellant sprays or put up fencing. Planting tulips among allium and daffodil bulbs may help, as deer do not care for either of those flowers.

As tulip bulbs begin to emerge from the ground, apply a slow-release fertilizer for flower beds. If mulch has matted down over the bulbs and they are struggling to emerge, gently remove some of the mulch.

Cold weather in spring seldom damages emerging bulbs unless the buds are fully formed and ready to open. At that time a quick covering with old sheets or newspaper might allow the flowers to bloom.

Keep flowers picked off as they fade. Don't allow them to go to seed as this takes energy from the bulb, which is forming next years flowers.

The leaves of tulips must be allowed to yellow and dry up naturally if you want the bulbs to produce new flowers next year. After the foliage has dried up it can be removed. Planting bulbs among other perennials that will grow up and hide the drying leaves, such as daylilies and hosta, is recommended.

Using tulips
Tulips are excellent for early color in perennial borders and beds. They look best when planted in drifts or clumps of one color in formal beds. In informal beds you can scatter clumps of mixed colors throughout the bed. Tulips make excellent cut flowers. Species tulips with small flowers are good for rock gardens and in naturalized areas.

While daffodils and narcissus are long-lived in the garden, tulips often fade out and disappear after a year or two, especially in warmer areas. This is because they prefer a dry area after they go dormant, and our flower beds are generally kept watered. Species tulips are not as fussy as the hybrids. They may actually spread slowly in the garden if they like the site. If tulips seem to disappear in your garden, you can dig and store tulip bulbs after the tops have died to replant in the fall, or treat them as annuals and buy new ones each fall. Southern gardeners, of course, will have to plant prechilled bulbs each year. In some areas, tulips are now being offered ready-to-bloom in flats, and you plant them out in the garden in the spring.