My Bed of Tulips II

Last year I had an unusual occurrence - I ordered 1,000 yellow tulips, planted them in a bed in my garden, and had a beautiful bed of WHITE tulips. Somewhere between the grower and the bulb company, the bulbs had been mis-labeled. I told about it here:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/921976/.

The bulb company, Van Bourgondien, said they had no other complaints of mis-labeling, but replaced the bulbs this fall at no charge (over $300 with shipping!), so I thought I would chronicle what happens this year, just for fun.

Here's how it starts - I pulled up all the annuals in the bed, applied a layer of composted horse manure to help amend the soil, and had the bed rototilled two weeks ago.

I placed the 1,000 "Mrs. John Scheepers" (a Mayflowering Darwin tulip) on the surface and planted them, one bulb at a time, with a hand trowel.

I topped the bed with a thick layer of pine mulch and now we'll wait 'til next spring to see what comes up!

Looking good. I hope you have the correct color this time.

Wow I cannot imagine planting 1,000 bulbs!!! I can't wait to see the results. I hope they are the right color. What did you do with the whites?

This message was edited Oct 22, 2009 10:20 AM

I remember your post and I think the white looked beautiful but they werent what you wanted. A friend of mine worked for them on Long Island, NY and she told me they made alot of mistakes with sending out the wrong orders, she has since quit and they closed that office. I know I will never order from them, the customer service people are not nice. I'm glad they did the right thing for you and I pray you will be happy next spring after all your hard work. So who did you pass all those bulbs on to? I'm sure you made someone very happy........
Christine

LOL. Actually, I think the problem last year came when the bulbs were harvested - I think they were mis-labeled at the grower, because the packages were marked "Mrs. John Scheepers", but the bulbs were obviously "Maureen".

Although they weren't what I ordered or wanted, the white tulips were beautiful - so beautiful, in fact, that I tried to save them by digging them in June and holding them in my basement over the summer.

I planted 750 of the largest bulbs from last spring in this bed as an experiment to see what I get next spring. I normally just dig and toss my bulbs each year, but if this works for me, I'll be saving more in the future.

I can't fathom the amount of time you must spend planting bulbs, and to do it all by hand--I wouldn't be able to unbend my fingers for a week if I did that! I am amazed every time I see your pictures. Just beautiful!

Hey Leawood,

I'm in the process of putting my bulbs back in, including Maureen. I've got my lilyflowering, multiflowering, species and doubles back in. Some of them formed offsets while sitting in the garage! I'll be looking forward to your Maureen next year.

Donna

Hey Donna!

It's thanks to your encouragement that I saved the white tulips (Maureen?) from last year. I sorted out 750 of the biggest bulbs and planted them, but I still have a 5 gallon bucket of smaller (and some not-so-small) bulbs I'm going to sprinkle in spots throughout the border. I'm anxious to see what happens - who knows, I may start saving all my tulips!

Hey!

Yes, yes, that's exactly what you want to do! I sprinkle my "leftover" - the smaller bulbs - in places like my peony borders. These are "Leftovers" that are at least 3 years old. Doubles Angelique, Maywonder and Mount Tacoma, Lily Flowering White Trumphinator (an outstanding tulup) and multiflowering triumph Weisse Berliners. I just throw them around. They cost nothing, but they dazzle.

How wonderful. Please keep us posted.

Donna

Dig'em all and toss them! Oy. Poor tulips just can't handle the warmth. Mine are all in MI so they grow great. I live in NC in the winters and not many people even try to grow them.

Leawood,

In your zone, can you not just leave the tulips in the ground as they should flower another year or two? At my mother's house in Illinois, she did that and had good return for three of four years. I would think especially with Single Lates like "Maureen" or "Mrs. J. Scheepers" you would get decent return - even I got several to come back down here that I'd left in the ground in a dry area.

At any rate, yellow or white, your beds are astonishing. I love the single lates because they are so TALL and prolific relative to other tulips, and the flowers have such a nice form.

Hi, Steve! Long time, no see! Feeling a little jealous of your Texas weather about now!

Angie

LeawoodGardener, your beds are always so beautiful. I'll be anxious to see how many of your whites return.

Leawood, I think that Steve is right. I could not get Maureen out for a couple of years (planted too deeply) and when I finally could and bought other Maureens the difference was minimal. So you probably can leave them for at least two years without mishap. That way you wouldn't have to dig them every year or toss and buy them every year. Now, if you are doing a lot of watering it might decrease the time you can leave them in. But I suspect that if you don't want to move them for a couple of years they will come back well.
Donna

Howdy Angie :-) Good to see you again as well. Work has been killing me but I am trying to find time to get on more here. I hope you are doing well! Look forward to seeing you at the RU next year!!!

Thank you Donna for the comfirmation!! Your tulips are magnificent in their own right when they bloom.

^_^

Steve, I've tried leaving tulips (not Maureen, but Apricot Beauty, Orange Bouquet and Mrs. John Scheepers), with really disappointing results. I think the fact that I fill the beds with annuals, which get plenty of water, causes the bulbs to rot or disappear somehow. For years I was satisfied to dig & toss the bulbs (I was far less frugal years ago), but with Donna's encouragement, I'm experimenting with saving the bulbs, and, hey, I can use the exercise! LOL.

Steve and Lea, you're both right. It's the water. Lea, I put in annuals too, and they have to be watered. The bed that contained Maureen had the annuals mirabilis jalapa, nicotiana alata, and verbena bonariensis, which got very litle water because they don't need it.

Wow its great to get the benefit f the experience of others - and such neat peple too!

My hugh tulip bed is under Maples. They keep the bulbs dry despite daily watering. I don't have to worry about the water, just the voles!!!

Now if you just stood under the tree with a shovel...

Donna, There's 20 trees!!!!

Running shoes!

The morning's workout???? I'd be too tired to do any gardening afterward.

I knew that years ago it was common for people to lift their tulips, but didn't realize that it was still widely practised until I read LeawoodGardener and your posts. I know that it's still common in commercial landscaping, but didn't realize that home gardeners still did it.

My bed has perennials all planted throughout it. I add some tulips to it every year to keep it full. Some years the display is better than others. There are also daffs mixed in it so that helps keep it full. It is never just one color, which would be much harder to keep full.

My trick is self seeding annuals. Here is my White Trumphinator/Yonina bed on May 10.

Same bed in August. I pull up the tulips and dry them, and put in gladiolus Good News, pulled out of storage. Then add Mirabilis jalapa in lavender pink, garden balsam in pink, red and purple, verbena bonariensis and nicotiana alata. The combo looks good for some time, although the garden balsam deteriorates.

I collect the garden balsam seed (and separate the colors, because they only come in mixes) collect the pinky mirabilis (I like it because it's unusual) dry and store them. Nikkis and verbena b come up every year once you have them in your yard. I just pull the excess.

Donna, That is a ton of work!!!! I don't know how you find time for it all.

I have a relatively small lot. WITH the house it's a quarter acre, although I have a terrific easement. I break the work into pieces, and the displays are great. But if I had a property the size of yours, I doubt that I could do it. And really, it's my passion. I can't draw or so sew, so I do this instead.

Stormy, your comment above is interesting. Is it really common in commercial landscaping to lift bulbs? I thought that they didn't bother. Am I wrong? I do know that I am the only one around here who does it, and people do look at me as though they think I'm nuts.

Donna, Not only do they lift them, they toss them!!! Next year, I'm going to ask a landscaper friend to collect some refuse tulips for me.

It's hard to tell because of the way I used the zoom in these photos, but this bed is 150' x 30'. And this is my small bed!!!

Leawood, I never have much luck in N.W. Missouri getting my tulips to return each year nor grow as well as they do that first year.Some do better than others but overall they seem to go into decline. This thread always has some great ideas and I'm going to improve on growing better tulips!
Cuckoo

Leawood: I followed your tribulation with the wrong tulips last spring and they were gorgeous when they bloomed, even though the wrong color. I'll be watching again to see if you have better luck next spring. BTW, that's some wonderful soil you've got there. You have really been kind and caring to it!

Other Angie

Thanks for the kind words, Angie. It's been cold and blustery here in zone 5b (7 degrees overnight - 'high' of 18 yesterday - today it's up to 44 in the sun), so all the 'excitement' is happening underground, where my bulbs are forming roots and starting their crawl to the surface.

In about 10 weeks we'll begin to see the fruits of our labors as the first of these new bulbs start to emerge (some of my naturalized tete 'a' tete narcissus have already poked their noses out of the ground, but the cold will stop them now) - I can hardly wait.

Intellectually, I know the importance of winter to our plants and trees, but I get restless indoors, looking out at the cold gray landscape and occasional snow. In fact, tomorrow I'm planning to take an afternoon off to take advantage of a break in the frigid weather so I can do a final clean-up of leaves from under the hedges and trim the blooms from my hydrangeas. It will feel good to work outside.

Come March I really enjoy seeing new growth emerge as winter draws to a close and I start working outdoors in earnest.

The shortest day of the year is only five days away! From then we start the roll downhill to spring!

Yayyyy! My Park Seed catalog came today! At least I'll have some good reading material, what with my Bluestone Perennials already here, the rose catalogs are coming in, T&M Seed catalog. Oh, my.

It's hard to imagine all these brown seemingly dead plants will break dormancy in a few months and fill our landscapes with such beautiful plants and flowers. It seems O.K. with me if the days start getting longer too. I'm ready to do several projects outside but now it's too cold for me. Those seed catalogs I often will pick up and look at and read over again until a new one arrives!
Cuckoo

Hemophobic, your reading list sounds like mine. I miss the GREEN! I even put my silk plants on the deck so there's some green on my deck. They're covered in snow, but it's some green!

It's early March and we've just had our first day when the temperature hit the 50's since last November! We've had so much cold and snow, I had to walk in the garden to see what's happening.

Of course, the daffodils, hyacinths and tete'a'tete narcissus have been poking their heads out of the frozen ground for weeks (not much growth, just peeking out to see if it's OK to emerge), but yesterday I saw the allium emerging!

The 'Maureen' tulips I saved last year were planted in this bed. It's hard to see, but they are emerging too! We will have spring soon!

Great I am anxiously awaiting the pictures of the entire process. I so enjoy following this thread.