AboutLong Island Gardener Expertise Growing Tulips? Dahlias? Daffodils? Gladiolus? It doesn't get easier than bulbs and tubers. Once in a while, something goes wrong: The dreaded Narcissus Bulb Fly, which resembles a honeybee. Mosaic virus, which can ignite a field of tulips in a single season. Nematodes, lurking underground. Here on the North Shore of Long Island, the garden is full of surprises. If you live in the Northeast/Atlantic Coast, I can help you pick the right bulb for every season, indoors and out, and help you fertilize, bloom and harvest for home or work. How: I have degrees in related fields, but my best understanding is all learned from trial and error. For most of my 53 years I have been gardening somewhere. No matter what the problem, I've learned the best answers are always Organic -- Earth friendly, less expensive, healthier for people and pets, easier and cleaner than toxic liquids and powders that big chemical companies sell so smoothly.
Experience Besides degrees in related fields, and a few favorite horticultural societies, I work as a docent at our local botanical gardens -- but it's the years of work in the garden that's the real test.
Question Hi - My husband gave me a pot of beautiful tulips on Mother's day. After they bloomed, my husband discarded them, but I recently found them out in our backyard in the same pot! They're dead of course, but I heard that the tulips can be saved and stored until next spring. Is it still possible to save? They've been in a shady spot since Mother's Day. I live in NJ (zone 6).
Thanks!
Answer Many years ago, when I bought my first house, I was determined to install the spectacular Spring Tulips display I had always dreamed about.
I spent a small fortune on bulbs that year, although money was tight. It was my first mortgage and I did not have money to throw out the window. But Tulips were considered an investment. The ground was prepared ad nauseum, the Bone Meal and Sand tossed in, the Soil analyzed and corrected and amended. Spring came and went, and cars slowed down as they passed my house to admire my work.
But the following year, there were fewer Tulips. I wondered about it, but I was busy, and gave it little thought until the year after that, when even fewer Tulips emerged and even fewer bloomed. By year 5 not a single Tulip I had slaved over to provide the perfect home and the balanced diet had survived. And so I now understand what I've been learning, but never hearing, all these years: Tulips are bred for beauty. Not for reliability. Not for a long life expectancy.
Sometimes it's viruses that get them. Sometimes Fungus diseases or insects. But sometimes it's just plain death that stops them from blooming again. These are not the exception. They are the rule.
And this is with the BEST of care.
Can you get your tossed Tulips to bloom next year? Maybe. Try.
Put them in the ground, covered with 12 inches of soil, someplace that will be Sunny when they emerge next Spring before the Trees leaf out.
If there is any trace of Green on their leaves, keep the foliage on and water them like they were there the whole time.
Then all Summer, ignore them. If you can, cover them with a flagstone to keep moisture and temperatures to a minimum. Next Spring, see what happens. You may get lucky.
