Expert: Long Island Gardener - 10/27/2006

Question
What is wrong with Fish Emulsion? What about Alfalfa Meal?
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The text above is a follow-up to ...

-----Question-----
Do you think that I should plant tulips this year again? I had some that came up beautiful one year.  Next year alot came up but alot didn't.  Last year was not very good.  I didn't take care of them.  Do you think that may cause them to die out of neglect?
-----Answer-----
Tulips are not all that perennial, unfortunately, as marketers would have you believe.

Beautiful, yes.  Perennial - hardly.

Deep planting and serious drainage will extend the life of these plants and maybe they'll bloom in successive years.  The best thing you can do in summer is NOT take care of them - keep them as cool and dry as possible, and NEVER fertilize them unless you're using Bonemeal or pure Phosphorous.  Feedings of Nitrogen or anything that has that in the formula - like Fish Emulsion and Bloodmeal - encourage bulb rot.

Give them lots of sun and leave the foliage on until it dies out.  If you cut any for indoors, keep as much of the leaf on the plant as you can deal with.  Other than that, they're too often like a gourmet meal.  When it's gone, it's gone.

Answer
The problem is that these bulbs do not need a lot of fertilizer.  Excessive dosing - easy to do - leads to excessive cell division and soft growth.

Tulips, Daffodils and Crocuses are all susceptible.

Alliums are also affected.  Botrytis Neck Rot is a serious disease of the Allium genus.  Growers lose upwards of half their crop to this disease, which commonly occurs following heavy rain during the fall harvest season or when farmers apply heavy doses of Nitrogen late in the growing season.  Both of these conditions delay bulb maturity and make bulbs susceptible to Botrytis allii, B. squamosa and B. cinerea. Botrytis squamosa also causes leafblight in onion plants, which includes garlic, shallots, chives, leeks and ornamental flowering onions.