How To Plant Tulips And Store Them

I really love to plant tulips.  They are one of my favorite spring bulbs.  I find myself pouring over the magazines in the dead of winter dreaming of a garden a riot of color with beds overflowing with my favorite tulip varieties.  It is a dream of mine.  I will often fill my online cart with all of these dreamy bulbs only to crash to reality when I see how much my total is.  So, we’ve been wanting to plant tulips in our flower beds for a while now, so when we saw a bunch at Lowes and Tractor Supply 50% off we couldn’t resist.

How To Plant Tulips For A Focal Point

We picked a couple of different tulip varieties so we can switch it up in the garden and create an interesting focal point. We went with colors that were similar to the colors already found in our flowerbeds throughout the season.

Where To Plant Tulips

First off you want to pick where you are going to be planting these beauties, you want someplace with lots of sunshine as tulips aren’t a huge fan of the shade. You also want someplace that is well-drained and water isn’t going to pool and rot your bulbs. We chose to put a good chunk (75 of these) around the edge of our gazebo, for a pop of color in spring.

How To Prepare Your Soil To Plant Tulips

Now that you picked the place you’re going to plant your tulips you need to prepare the soil. We used a shovel to turn over the soil and get it all loosened up, next we added composted manure to the plot and then used the shovel to mix it together. You want the end result to be nice loose soil. You can also add organic fertilizer to the soil while you are mixing.

How To Plant Tulips

Use a bulb planter or hand shovel to dig a hole in the prepared soil, you want the hole to be three times deeper than your bulb is tall. You want about 5 inches of dirt over the top of the bulb.

Set the bulb with the little tip pointing up in the hole, this will help the sprout come to the surface much faster. Space your bulbs a couple of inches apart. We kept ours pretty close, together so it would be a wall of color around the gazebo. Play around and find a pattern/distance that works best for you. We chose to go 2-4 rows wide in our flowerbed.

Once your bulbs are planted you’ll want to cover them (it’s easier to leave the bulbs uncovered until you are finished so you can make sure your pattern and spacing are staying about the same throughout the flowerbeds) and water thoroughly. Next, you want to cover the freshly planted plot with a nice layer of mulch. That’s it you planted tulips!

When To Plant Bulbs

The best time to plant your bulbs is in October or November- but if you live in places where you have mild winters you can plant in December.

If you’re not ready to plant your tulips, keep them in paper bags, not the plastic ones they come in,  in a cool place that is rodent-free. If you have room a good place for them is in the crisper drawer in your refrigerator but don’t store them with bananas or apples because they give off gasses that will kill the flower inside the bulb.

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