Hi everyone,

I have no experience at all with tulips, but my wife this year decided
that I was going to plant 200 tulips... And you know: when your wife
decides something you also decide without knowing!

my neighbour told me that most tulips only flower one or two years. If
this is the case what should I do after they have flowered: 1) remove
and throw away or 2) leave them in the soil (i am guessing there is
some folliage) and hopefully new bulbs will grow and they will flower
again at some point?

Or is my neighbour having fun selling me the wrong info?

Thanks

"P. Alves" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi everyone,

I have no experience at all with tulips, but my wife this year decided
that I was going to plant 200 tulips... And you know: when your wife
decides something you also decide without knowing!

my neighbour told me that most tulips only flower one or two years. If
this is the case what should I do after they have flowered: 1) remove
and throw away or 2) leave them in the soil (i am guessing there is
some folliage) and hopefully new bulbs will grow and they will flower
again at some point?

Or is my neighbour having fun selling me the wrong info?
Thanks

My personal experience is that they flower well the first year and then
slowly decline ...... maybe it depends on the type of tulip you plant.....I
know other people who have prolonged success with them year in year out, so
hope they will tell us their trick :~))

I tend to bin mine if they don't do well in the 2nd year.
Jenny

jane wrote:
[...]
I buy a pack or two of ten most years, put them in pots and they
usually do fantastically in year one. Then I plant the contents of the
pot as deeply as I can around my fruit trees at the allotment. The
following year you're lucky to get anything apart from leaves. The one
after that I get about 1-2 flowers per bagful, then they gradually
increase. Last year I had 20 flowering again from a couple of years'
worth of bulbs that had been in 4 or so years..

If I leave them in pots, however big, they never seem to do anything
even a couple of years down the way.
[...]

In my experience, you need to go back to some of the low-growing
species if you want long-term flowering: they also look better to some
tastes. The Brit Is don't really have the weather patterns they like,
but they'll often do well, and even multiply slowly, if you give them
good conditions. That means a southerly aspect and good drainage all
the year round: in Wet Wales I grew them successfully on a slight mound
among rocks with a lot of grit worked into the clay soil.

Rather incompetently, I can't quite remember what they were; but I'm
pretty sure I had T. turkestanica and a very pale pink form of
T.pulchella with a yellow throat. I moved about ten years after
planting, and they were still going strong; but note that many, I think
most, of the "species" tulips on sale are actually selected forms, not
the true wild originals: this may have implications for long-term
viability. So if you want to fill a large space, it's worth hedging
your bets by buying the same species from different suppliers, even if
they say the bulbs are "botanical species".

--
Mike.

Bury them much deeper than the planting instructions, as much as 25cm deep. That way they will be more likely to survive the summer in the ground. This is in contrast to traditional practice, which is shallow planting followed by digging them up in summer and replanting in autumn. If they fail to come back you can just ignore them. This method is recommended by BBC gardening programmes.

Try to persuade your wife that tulips are nice planted in clumps, rather than the regimented grid patterns seen in commercial plantings. Then you won't have to dig 200 holes. Also missing ones that fail to come up are less obvious. Surround the bulbs with some compost in the bottom of the hole. Sieve out any stones from the soil you back-fill, otherwise they may shred the emerging flowers.

Certain kinds of tulips, "species tulips" may multiply and spread, but hybrids usually don't.