Expert: Long Island Gardener - 11/22/2006

Question
i recently purchased a glass pot with tulip bulbs (no soil-just a tray of bulbs sitting over water)...they started blooming today and i think will last about a week or two.
can these be saved for next year or for planting at any other time?  I'm not sure about the weather requirements for planting...I live in scottsdale az (85254) and have only seen these bulbs sold like this here in November.

thanks!

Answer
Can't blame you for wanting to save those Tulips for another season or two or more.

Planted in that glass pot, I'll bet they cost a small fortune, between the pretty pot and the shipping and handling, if applicable.

Well, I have bad news.  But we'll put it in perspective.

The bad news is that unless you live in Holland, or somewhere that cold ocean water is being pumped nearby for crops and to keep the land from flooding, it is almost impossible to get those bulbs to re-bloom.  Even planted in the ground, only species or Emperor tulips are usually cooperative enough to create new flowers and bloom again in the future.

But there is another thing I want to point out.

Given your Arizona location, I suspect that these are some very fancy bulbs in a very fancy pot.  I don't use that word lightly.  Fancy in New York = megabucks.  It's like Lobster from Maine, and Bagels from the Lower East Side; shoes from Italy and Coffee from Maui.  If you were to buy those same bulbs (and this would be quite do-able), you would pay a LOT less.  I'm trying to tell you that you shouldn't feel too bad about tossing them; they're cheap.  It's the pot plus the Fancyness that you paid for, not the bulbs.

You may still be able to order bulbs on the internet for a song right now, because it's at the end of the bulb planting season.  Some places will even pre-chill them for you and send them when they're ready to force.  You need cool conditions to get that to happen; if a bulb is too hot, instead of flowering, it will stick up out of the ground and sit there as if it didn't know what to do next.  That's called blasting.  And it happens even in Northeastern gardens all the time.

If you have that kind of energy and interest, write back, and I will give you the steps to take.  It would after all be a shame to waste such a Fancy pot.

Thanks for writing.  Let me know.