Shirley tulip

Does anyone know if this tulip is a true perennial?

All tulips are.
They just don't return if the conditions don't suit them - too wet, too cold etc etc
Or if something eats them lol

Shirley is just a particular cultivar. I believe it is white tinged with lavendar.

I am surprised that you say that philomel. I was under the impression that the tulip growers have quit really breeding tulips to be true perennials except for the darwin's and some of the species tulips.
I think Shirley is pink, with multiple blooms.....

i have tulips that come back year after year no problem.

Mark, how much cold do you have in winter and how long does winter last?

They are treated as annuals here (zone 8, Texas) because there is not enough consistent cold for the chilling times they need in order to return each year.

we have the same zone as you.

very rarely do we get long periods of cold when frost, ice or snow is on the ground. When we do get it it defrosts/melts very quickly.

why dont you leave them in the ground? if you do what happens?

Thanks Mark, you are very encouraging. But I feel ignorant, where is IE?

Lavanda, I am zone 8b and tulips thrive here if you can keep gophers, moles out. I have some in the ground that have been there quite a few years.

well it isnt where I live! it's the same as calling an American a Canadian! LOL

I live in Northern Ireland which is part of the UK but I've been tagged Southern Irish :-(

For some people Tulips are annuals. For some people they are perrenials. As I "dig" further and further into this gardening thing (I'm quite new to it ~~~ this is my first garden winter), I'm beginning to learn that plant performance has to do with three basic things:

The plant materials. The quality of the plant (genetics and health), bought or cultured by the garderer. I've learned quickly that "too good to be true," usually means the plant is already dead.

The soil. The quality and suitability of the soil matrix to physically support and provide water and nutrition to the plant, and how we are caring for and improving this.

The gardener. The standards and practices followed by the gardener. I.e.: When Mark says he has planted a bulb and I say I have planted a bulb, it's possible that two very different things are meant, based upon his greater knowledge and experience.

While zones may be important for determining, ultimately, if a plant will be hardy through a cold season, I am certain the three factors above play at least as important a role.

Adam.

I have to ask how can a Tulip NOT come back the following year?

is it disease, cold/heat, waterlogging or other external influences.

please tell

ps are they annuals because they die?

This message was edited Saturday, Jan 25th 11:37 AM

This is an interesting question.

Here where I live, the experience of local gardeners seems to be that some flower the following year, some flower the year after that.

Some bulb sales companies sell tulip bulbs AND something they call Perennial Tulips, which are also tulips of course.

Some people buy masses of new tulip bulbs every year, lifting the ones they put in the previous autumn.

I think what we have here, though inexperience may have me totally turned around, is a triumph of short~term cultural practices and savvy marketing strategy over genetic realities.

While it seems obvious to me that tulips are perennial, based upon proper culture and practices (and having started with quality plant materials in the first place), perhaps bulb nurseries need us to not follow these practices in order to stay in business.

My wife just now said it would be possible to insert a growth stop gene into the DNA of a tulip hybrid to prevent it from blooming the second year (she does not work in genetic modification, however, yet understands at the molecular level how these things operate).

Adam.

I know what you are saying. some people here lift their tulips when the leaves turn yellow and store them in damp peat and replant them at the right!! time of year. Those who live somewhere where the temperature doesny fall low enough to give a cold spell to trigger growth should place their tulips in the salad drawer of the 'fridge for 6 weeks and then plant them out.

What Aotereo's wife said is correct. Some of these tulips are engineered to NOT bloom another year. We call the salad drawer here, the "crisper" but my husband calls it the "rotter" because he forgets what's in there and it rots.

The creation of FrankenTulips, while quite possible, would be on the level of creating genetically modified soybeans, corn, potatoes, etc ~~~ would be pretty big news, and certainly controversioal given the ease with which these plants cross~pollinate.

Remember, my wife was not speaking of hybrids here, but the insertion of genetic material into the DNA sequence of a tulip bulb, a thing that happens at the molecular level.

Europe, the source of most tulip bulbs, looks upon this sort of thing with a rather jaundiced eye.

Please share any news items you can find on the topic.

Thanks.

Adam.

the sensible thing to do with anything modified in that way would be to refuse to buy. The only reason I can see for doing it would be to make create demand for buying new bulbs every year - to line the wholesalers' pockets. Unless you know different??

My wife is sitting here sipping coffee, telling me what to type. She is a molecular bio~physicist.

It has not yet been clearly demonstrated that genetically modified plants do not cross pollinate with non~modified plants in their genus. As any gardener knows, accidental cross pollinations are rather common.

The underlying principal of genetic modification in food plants has been to insert foreign genetic material into the DNA sequence in order to enhance specific disease immunities or create desireable traits such as drought resistance.

The potential cascade effects of cross pollination can very well be the reduction in bio~diversity in the modified species and genus, and thus, possibly, increased vulnerability to pests and other diseases, to which a diverse and genetically vibrant community of plants might respond through self~sellection.

The truth of the matter is that the research that would objectively demonstrate the facts in the matter of genetically modified plants has yet to be completed, and will take years to perform. Until then, essentially, we are re~combining blind from the genetic storehouse.

As genetically modified corn planted in Iowa has been demonstrated to have pollinated corn in the Chihuahua state of Mexico, one should be quite reluctant to plant genetically modified foods or decorative plant materials (including tulips if they exist) in ones garden.

Karen & Adam.

but it may just be that this has been said for so long that people belive it ie rumour that Tulips are throw away bulbs became truth from a lie and can be just as confusing as Pelargoniums and Geraniums.

I have never heard that Tulips have been genetically modified to flower only once. I know someone that I can ask

http://www.emilycompost.com/why_bulbs_dont_bloom.htm some info on bulbs but it mainly repeats what I have said before now

I agree Mark. I think it highly likely that this is rumour.

I am doing a patent search to see what I can come up with. If there are FrankenTulips, they are surely protected by patent.

I also think this search will come up dry.

Adam.

This message was edited Monday, Jan 27th 11:18 AM

I have lots of tulips if you would like to trade some.mavis

I have done some studying too and there are some types that only bloom once, usually called the Triumph Tulips also those sometimes classified Single Late Tulips. I also don't believe I have seen the Lily-flowered or Fringed tulips repeat bloom. It's not because I haven't tried; I have some beautiful specie tulips that have repeated and will try some Darwin's and some of John Scheeper's Impression Hybrids this year.....

This message was edited Sunday, Aug 31st 9:02 AM
Edited the second time for spelling

This message was edited Tuesday, Sep 2nd 7:36 PM

I wonder how much of a factor in longevity is the application of bone meal and blood meal when planting, and then twice a year?

Hi there darius: I think that was what some of the others were addressing earlier. They believe it depends a lot on the gardener and I'm sure it does a lot of the time. But a lot of the tulips we buy here in the U.S. do not rebloom no matter what.
I have seen the practice of lifting the tulips used at Biltmore. They lift them after they bloom and replant the whole area in the roses. Then apparently they take the roses out and put them somewhere else and replant with the tulip bulbs. Weird......
John Scheepers told me they fertilize 3 times a year. Once before blooming, once right after blooming and once in the fall.

i fertilize my bulbs that way. i'm curious to see if the "new design" and "monte carlo" , from bleek's fall bulb 2002, will blossom next spring.
i had believed that tulips were "throw away" too, except for a few. well i had my dh dump 2 containers of tulips and dirt. they both did a u turn, came up and blossomed, much to my amazement. they were smaller than the previous year but i wasn't surprised because i hadn't fertilized them the 3 times like i do all my other bulbs to aid in there energy for growth and storing.
one set i left behind the tree at the edge of the woods and the others i put into a container. i have fertilized them all and will wait to see what happens with them next spring.
the thought that came to mind when i saw them behind that tree was "isn't mother nature resourceful and oh so very grand"

Well...I think I'll join in the confusing fun. My lily flowering, parrot, and fringed tulips have been flowering nicely for several years. Some are better at surviving for many seasons. Shoot! When I was a kid, my neighbor had a variety of tulips abandoned in the woods that kept coming up for years. If you want them to keep coming back, don't remove the foliage and buy tulips labeled 'good for naturalizing'. Those will usually increase. Here's an additional thought to throw in the mix. Some tulips are very prone to 'spliting'. This means the bulb separates into a group of smaller bulbs, which will eventually all increase in size and produce blooms. Some only do it every few years, others might do it right after blooming. These are probably the ones most often called the 'throw-aways', as some people don't want to wait the year or two between blooms. They don't die, they just split and look like ugly foliage for a year or two. And, if you like a well manicured garden...into the compost bin they go.
So...the question is simply how often will they split, and there is no reliable answer. The best for consistant blooms would probably be the species tulips. I'd recomend the lily flowering ones after that, as mine appear to keep blooming even when they split. And, so far, so are the parrot and fringed. But maybe they just like my heavy clay soil. :)
Don't know if this helps any.
And here's a photo of a group of lily flowering tulips that went from 5 bulbs to the number of blooms in the photo in one year.

naturepatch

Here, our tulips usually bloom every year, in the same spot. I'm wondering if it has something to do with the amount of cold they get in the winter? Maybe they need a good cold spell in order to bloom every year?

I'm not a tulip expert by any means, but I've seen patches of tulips bloom every spring like clockwork annually and nothing is being done with them. Been watching the same tulip beds since I was a kid, and that's a fair amount of years ago. It does get very cold here too.

i just read somewhere that bulbs have to be a certain size, to be planted and achieve flowers the following season. that is why all the catalogues sell the same size bulbs, smaller or larger and they would take longer to settle in and not bloom the following season, and since they all guarantee there bulbs to bloom and of course we are all eager eyed gardeners waiting for that first glimpse come spring, summer or fall.

I just bought two bags of the Truimph Tulips! Akkk! They won't come back next year? I did a search but I didn't hit on that. Help me out? I should add they are Negrita and the mixed pastels.

Davena

This message was edited Friday, Sep 5th 8:07 AM

Well, from what I've learned, the Darwins, the Species, the Kaufmanias and Greigii are the most likely to rebloom. I was surprised to hear naturepatch say her lily-flowering tulips, parrot tulips and fringed tulips are reblooming her. Scheepers has the best and explains them better in their catalogs, so perhaps there is something to learn there.

My parrots come back each year as well as the species tulips I have (not just Kaufmanias and Greigiis, but bakeri and the lady tulip and others I can't remember off hand).
In fact when I think of it, lily flowered and fringed too.

... oh and I'm on heavy clay too naturepatch. I always thought they preferred sandy soil, but perhaps not...