Tulip
Tulipa species (LILIACEAE)
Planting and Growing Tulips
You’ll find everything you need to know to plant and grow tulip in the accompanying table’s tabs:
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- Flowers, foliage, and root structure of tulip
- Season of bloom and planting time for tulip
- Plant hardiness and growing conditions for tulip
- When, how deep, and where to plant tulip
- How to plant tulip
- Watering, fertilizing, care and pests or diseases of tulip
- Landscape and indoor uses of tulip
- Comments about tulip and its features
Growing Tulips
Spring bulb. Deciduous. Up to 100 species, many hybrids and cultivars. Stands 5–24 in. (13–60 cm) tall. Broad to straplike, light to deep green leaves, sometimes patterned with stripes or mottled.
Tulip Planting and Care Guide
Flowers
Spring. All colors except blue; bi- and multicolored. Solitary single or double, egg-shaped, sometimes fragrant flowers, to 4 in. (10 cm) wide, with rounded or pointed, smooth or fringed petals.
Best Climates
U.S.D.A. Plant Hardiness Zones 4–10; ground hardy, zones 4–7.
Soil Type and Fertility
Moist, well-drained soil. Fertility: Rich–average. 5.5–6.5 pH.
Where and How to Plant
Autumn–winter in full sun to partial shade. Space 2–4 in. (5–10 cm) apart, 5–8 in. (13–20 cm) deep, depending on species.
Proper Care
Easy. Keep moist winter–spring. Fertilize bimonthly in spring. Mulch, zones 8–10. Protect from wind. Propagate by offsets in late summer–autumn. Divide only when crowded. Transplant container plants to garden in second year.
Lifting and Storing
Dark, 40–50°F (4–10°C), in net bag or open basket of dry peat moss.
About This Species
Good choice for accents, beds, borders, containers, massed plantings in cottage, formal, woodland gardens. Good for cutting. Most species tulips and some hybrids naturalize. Deer, rodent and aphid susceptible.
Tulip Divisions
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- Early Tulips, 9–16 in. (23–40 cm)
- Single Early Tulips
- Double Early Tulips
- Mid-Season Tulips, 16–26 in. (40–65 cm)
- Triumph Tulips
- Darwin Hybrid Tulips
- Late-Season Tulips, 16–36 in. (40–90 cm)
- Single Late Tulips (Darwin and Cottage)
- Lily-Flowered Tulips
- Fringed Tulips
- Rembrandt Tulips
- Parrot Tulips
- Double Late Tulips (Peony-Flowered)
- Species Tulips, (size varies)
- Kaufmanniana Tulips
- Fosterana Tulips
- Greigii Tulips
- Other Species Tulips
- Early Tulips, 9–16 in. (23–40 cm)
About Tulips
Members of the diverse Tulipa genus are the most popular of all spring bulbs. More than 100,000 hybrid cultivars of tulip are registered.
Tulips are closely related to lilies, but are true bulbs with tunicates, loose, papery shells that help them retain moisture.
Most tulips are native to southern Europe and the Middle East, though many species also are found throughout Asia’s temperate zones.
Tulips grow in every color and hue except a true blue. They have simple or exceedingly complex flowers. Some cultivars may have fringes or scalloped petals.
Tulips serve many different garden and cut-flower purposes. They look best when grouped in massed plantings, when allowed to naturalize and fill an area, or when used as a border in the landscape.
Many tulips offered for home gardens are either hybrids or one of the 15 or so common species tulips suitable for naturalizing in lawn, turf, or beneath a leafy bower of deciduous trees.
Growers offer early, midseason, and late tulips with a wide variety of growth habits, flower forms, and colors.
All species and hybrid tulips comprise horticultural groupings and divisions based on their flower type; for classification purposes, they first are grouped as botanical (species) or hybrid cultivars, then classified into one of 15 major divisions by the Royal Bulb Growers’ Association, Netherlands.
Choose from among the popularly cultivated species, above.
Planting and Caring for Tulips
Plant tulips in autumn in U.S.D.A. Plant Hardiness Zones 4–8, or in winter in autumn in hardiness zones 9–10. Choose a site with full sun to partial shade.
For best performance, soil for tulips should be moist, well-drained, sandy, and acidic humus.
Space bulbs as recommended for the cultivar and plant them 5–8 in. (13–20 cm) deep, or about three times their height. They also may be planted beneath turf, perennial plants, or ground cover plants.
Tulips also make excellent indoor plants when forced—planted into containers and chilled, then reared to bloom early in the season. Forced tulips provide color in winter.
Cut-flower arrangements that feature tulips also are popular in spring.
For floral arrangements cut the tulips’ stems twice.
The first cut frees the stem from the plant.
The second—made under running water just before arranging the floral display—prevents air from being trapped in the cut and blocking the flower from receiving water through its stem.
Cutting twice helps assure that the flowers in your arrangement or bouquet will stay fresh for the longest possible period of time.