Tips for Tulips

 

Spring has arrived, which means your always-reliable tulips will soon be blooming, if they haven't already. So are you prepared to help them fulfill all their potential when that dazzling color comes? Spring is always much brighter when your tulips begin to emerge; and every good gardener wants their flowers to stay in top condition, even after the blooming period ends. So below I have listed a few tips to help keep your tulips magnificent-looking for as long as possible.

While your tulips are blooming, you can add a sprinkling of liquid plant food to help give them a good growth spurt, and then sit back and watch the stunning colors become even more intense. Also a little fertilizer – the granular and nitrogen-rich kind – worked into the top layer of soil can also do wonders. Simply scratch the fertilizer into the surface. And remember to keep your soil moist only, never flooded.

Floral preservative is an excellent product to have if you are thinking of cutting a few tulips and placing them in vases around your house. While almost every floral shop carries some type of floral preservative, the best kind is a powdered form with a good combination of plant food and bacteria killers. It is best not to use folk remedies such as bleach water, soda, sugar, or coins in the vase water. Floral preservative is much safer and more dependable and will keep your tulips fresher for a longer period of time.

Over-crowding is bad. You do not want your tulips to get too crowded since it will prevent the blooms from becoming large and full. If you think your bulbs are getting too cramped up, simply wait until the foliage has completely died away, then dig up the bulbs and divide them by pulling or cutting off the smaller bulbs from the main bulb base. Be careful not to damage or bruise the bulbs since that will allow diseases such as Boyrytis (which is so deadly you will have to burn your tulips to get rid of it) to set in; and if you notice that any of your bulbs are scarred, dried out, or have soft spots, it is best to simply throw them away – the bulb is where the plant's food is stored and bigger healthier blooms are what you want. Once you have divided up your bulbs, simply replant them about a half a foot apart. (If you have a lot of replanting to do, you may want to look into various tools at your local gardening center that can make the process easier. They have tools available that can dig out perfectly cylindrical shapes of soil, which can make bulb insertion a lot easier.)


source : hydroponicsearch