Tulips - Seasonal Care for Tulips
Many experts justifiably treat tulips as annuals. Let them bloom once and enjoy the flowers, they say, but be prepared to plant them again year after year. There's ample justification for that approach, since it makes a lot of things easier. But some gardeners will want to preserve their tulips and take their chances at growing them more as a perennial, which is certainly possible with many cultivars.
When caring for tulips taking into account the various seasons begins even before they are planted in the ground. In particular, knowing when to plant is more critical with tulips than it is with many other plants. In order to work with their natural cycle, it's important to plant the bulbs in the late fall.
When exactly that is depends, of course, on your specific climate. In some areas that see early cold snaps and harsher winters, it could be as early as late September. For most areas it will be closer to mid-to-late October. For some warmer climates, which tulips definitely like given their origins in Central Asia, it can be as late as the end of November or even later.
Gardeners in warmer climates can help themselves and their tulips by storing bulbs in the refrigerator for 8-10 weeks before planting. Bulbs should be kept away from fruit. Ethane given off by ripening fruit can cause problems for the tulip bulbs by suppressing bud development. This starts the process that all tulip bulbs have to go through, which is a period of changes that prepare the plant for big growth in the spring.
Once the bulbs are planted, there is nothing you need to do until spring, of course. Spring, too, arrives at slightly different times in different parts of the planet. But beyond the weather, each category of tulip has a different 'waking up' period.
Single Early types, such as Bellona or Beauty Queen, blossom the soonest in part because they get started underground the earliest. The bulbs produce roots, then eject a stalk that buds early, which then grows until the buds finally flower. Double Early tulips, like Monte Carlo, start a week or two later.
That same 'timetable' is followed in a similar way by Mid-Season tulips like Triumphs and on to Late Season Single or Double Lates.
In every category, though, the basic procedure for the gardener is the same, just at different weeks of the season. Modest fertilizer, in the form of dry granules, can be helpful for less hardy plants. If the grains nestle around the base without being blown away, no other action is necessary. For very hard packed ground or in areas where the wind might kick up a bit more, a small sprinkling of water will help keep them in place so the material can leach down into the soil.
Watering now takes the focus.
Tulips first evolved in areas with cold winters, ample rainfall in spring for a short period, then hot, dry summers. Use that as a guideline to give them what they want and need. Watering well (assuming good drainage) once per week during the spring is good, if nature doesn't supply your area with enough to keep the soil moist. Then, in summer, once per month is usually plenty.
After the flowers have blossomed, enjoy the look and just keep weeds at bay. After about two weeks to a month, they'll wither and can be deadheaded - a practice that involves pinching the dead flowers off near the top of the stalk. There's no need to trim the foliage. Just let it wilt naturally.
Then the cycle begins all over again.
