My tulip bulbs bloom great the first year only. How can I get them to rebloom year after year?

Tulips need to be treated a little differently than most perrenials.





With most perrenials, all you have to do is plant them, feed the mand leave them alone.





With Tulips, you MUST allow the flower to die and shrivel on its own. For some reason, removingthe flower, or the flower stem causes the Tulip to grow weaker and results in a smaller less healthy plant the following year.





Next spring, when you see them first starting to come up, feed them. You NEED to use a good all around plant food





DO NOT USE BONE MEAL, DO NOT USE BLOOD MEAL.





Unlss you plan on combining htose with two or three others, they are NO good. They do NOT contain the nutrients that plants need.





They are excellent fertilizers, but only when used in combination with other fertilizers.





What I would suggest is that in early spring, cover the area with worm casings. Then feed every week or two with a balanced (20-20-20) water soluble fertilizer. After the tulips bloom, cut the dead flowers off, but leave the flower stalks alone and allow them to die back naturally. This should result in larger better blooms the next year.





http://www.dirtgardener.com/TipSheets/Bu...

My tulip bulbs bloom great the first year only. How can I get them to rebloom year after year?
Do you put bone meal in the holes when you plant the bulbs in the fall?


Maybe you have moles or voles?


It could be the weather. If you aren't getting very much moisture the bulbs won't bloom either. I water mine a few times in the winter and it helps them bloom in the spring.
Reply:Where are you buying your bulbs? If you're getting the 'discount' variety, they are often not as good or long lasting as the quality bulbs.
Reply:You didn't say what zone you live in, but in the warmer climates, tulips don't generally do well after the first year. They need a fair amount of winter chill. Where I live, in northern coastal California (north of SF), most tulips perform more or less as annuals. When you buy them, they have been pre-treated by storage in a cold environment, so they do great the first year. After that, because we don't get enough hours of temperatures under 40 degrees or so, they don't usually do much. You could dig them up and stick them in the refrigerator for 6 weeks or so before replanting. But that seems like a lot of work to me. So I either plant new ones in the fall, or I plant species tulips, which do better than the big fancy ones in a warmer climate.
Reply:Most bulbs are perennializing and some even naturalizing. Perennializing bulbs will return several years in a row. The large sized quality bulbs will return for at least 3 years. Naturalizing bulbs will reproduce and come back every year.





Bulbous plants will not flower again unless their leaves, which manufacture starch and sugars through photosynthesis, have time to replenish the depleted food supply of the bulb for the coming year. To replenish they create embryos for the next year’s flowers and, in the case of corms, produce new corms to replace the old ones. This process continues for weeks after the flowers die. That’s why the foliage must never be cut until it has yellowed. And even after the foliage has completely withered, the bulbs are at work below ground. Whether they are lifted and stored for winter in warm climates or left to winter in the cold, they continue to undergo chemical change to prepare for the next cycle.





Read More:


http://www.tulipworld.com/tulip.asp?cont...
Reply:Leave them in the soil after bloomin and after the leaves are completely dry%26gt; Don't worry about watering, just forget about them(put a tag to remember whre they are): be sure it's the quality that doesn't attract racoon or moles(otherwise put some pepper in case you find them undigged).


When the winter is over (I live in Canada) use some fertilizer every 2 weeks and water in the morning so you won't have any problems in case of frost. Not so much water just what you need to revive them.
Reply:When they have bloomed and start to die away, let them die naturally. If you cut them down after they start to die, the following year they will only grow foliage and not flowers.
Reply:Maybe add a little fertilizer a month or so before they will bloom black? I remember my mom had some in her old garden and they came back every year. Have you thought about the location? Maybe it's to much sun or not enough? Try to read up on tulips a little and then check your garden, make sure there are no other plants near by that might be taking away the nutrients in the soil and that they are in a good location. Good luck.
Reply:If you soil is poor, you'll need to feed 'em - bone meal, bulb food, etc.





But it could alsobe that the tulips' you're picking are fancy hybrid that were made to have new and interesting flowers. Those tend to be fabulous initially, and then loose power over time. Many people put in brand new tulip bulbs every year, or every other year.





If you want tulips to come back again and again - pick one that naturalize. They will actually spread and increase, rather than poop out, over time.

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