Tulips - Soil Preparation for Tulips
One of the great things about tulips, apart from their sheer beauty, is how easy they are to plant and care for.
If you time your planting well, or just get lucky, you may not need to water the soil at all before planting your bulbs. Tulips first evolved in rocky, relatively poor soil in hot, dry climates. But when they're first planted it is helpful for them to be placed in moist soil.
Planting in moist soil has several advantages.
Like any plant, tulips do need some water to grow and it's rare to get all they need just from the air. The bulbs are planted in the fall, so there's no great growth spurt taking place at this time. But it's at this time they store up the sugars and sprout the roots they'll need next spring when the bulbs produce stalks with buds that later blossom.
Also, while they thrive in less rich soil, too much air around the bulb prevents them from absorbing the nutrients they require. A little water performs two roles here.
One, it pushes out any excess air that might form around the bulb during planting. That's easy to introduce inadvertently simply by making the hole a little too large or failing to pack soil well around the bulb when you finish.
Second, it provides a pathway and medium for those nutrients to move from the packed soil nearby to the bulb. Some soil will dissolve into the water anyway. But even without it nutrient salts will dissolve in the moisture and move naturally into the roots by capillary action.
Those facts suggest some of the other soil preparation tasks that are not difficult, but to which one should pay a little attention.
Loamy soil is best.
It provides good aeration without having the large air gaps that we want to avoid. Since tulips do well in relatively dry conditions at least much of the summer, drainage is important.
Soil with too much clay retains more moisture than is ideal in the case of tulips. On the other hand, excessively sandy soil provides not only too little water retention but is often lacking in nutrients. Tulips are not orchids. They don't grow in sand or air as many species of orchid do.
If you have soil that is too far in one direction, it's pretty easy to adjust the conditions to what will suit your tulips best.
For excessively sandy soil, adding some clay-like soil and mixing well is a good idea. Note, that is 'clay-like', not clay. Breaking up actual brick pots, even into tiny pieces, is not the same thing. Those will never combine with the soil but simply make little spaces. That may be appropriate for Bonsai, but doesn't work well with tulips.
For very clay-like soil, the same idea holds in reverse. You can't produce good soil simply by pouring sand into the area. A little on top around the base of the stalk can help, though. It helps keep the soil temperature even and will discourage some pests.
A proper commercial soil preparation mulch will make your life easier here. Most will contain a good mix of potting soil and peat moss that is perfect for tulips.
