What about tulips as annuals

I read that tulips that are hybrids do not do well after the second year and to just treat them as annuals and throw the bulbs away. Well, I had purchased a dozen bulbs three years ago. After reading this, I dug the bulbs and just threw tham away, not wanting to have ugly tulips come up. I missed a few of the bulbs apparently as they are flowering this year with multiple blooms and look great. What is the information you can give me about bulbs having to be grown as annuals because they are hybrids and won't do well.
I feel cheated because I threw them away and now the ones are doing exceptionally well and are very pretty and like the parent. I don't remember where it was that I read the info about throwing them away. I am pretty sure it wasn't on Davesgarden.

the species tulips and the Darwin repeat bloom in subsequent years better than the others.

Not sure which I had since I was new to tulips. They were named ones called Marguerite and I can't remember the other one.

I know that people who plant in formal blocks...like Carolyne Roehm...pull all their bulbs out at the end of the season and replace with new ones in the fall. They want that "every four inches in rows" look that formal beds have, and are willing to pay for it.

I know my tulips often perform the second and third years, and we have some really old (25 years +) tulips around here.

But these are more informal, naturalized settings that don't require the blocks of color.

Does anyone know if the blocks of color can be maintained if you don't pull out the bulbs and replace?

A tulip bulb usually exhausts its energy flowering the first year that you plant it. Here in Ottawa, where we have a major Tulip Festival every May, we plant millions of bulbs each fall and yes, most get thrown out each year. The reason is that they typically exhaust themselves by flowering and need two years to recover.

In the home garden, you can keep tulips from one year to the next by feeding them well after blooming with a fertilizer high in potassium, and you would probably get decent bloom the following year. The problem is that you have to put up with the unattractive after-bloom foliage until it withers; and the following year you might only get leaves if the particular variety needs two years for the bulb to 'bulk up' and reach blooming size again. Some people dig them up and stick them in a trench to grow on where they can't be seen. This process is done for you when you buy new bulbs, and it's why most people don't bother with the hassle and just pitch them out.

Thanks for all the replies. At least I feel better knowing that I didn't do the wrong thing by yanking most of them. I was beginning to think I did the wrong thing. I will just leave the ones I have since they bloom when most things are still dormant and when the other things start coming up they easily fill in around them so they aren't
unsightly.

I was reading an article last year about tulips that don't come back. The reason stated was because we can't keep our gardens dry enough. Tulips in their natural envirionment don't get much moisture. The excess moisture in American gardens cause the bulbs to split. The article also suggested that if we planted bulbs deeper, they would be more perennial. I plan to do some experimenting this year. I'm going to dig up some of the bulbs and place them somewhere they can stay dry and replant this fall deeper and see what happens.

It should be noted, that species tulips usually do come back year after year, so you shouldn't toss those.

Here where I live hardly anybody grows tulips. I haven't seen them growing in yards in many years- I only see them at businesses. It just doesn't get cold enough here for them. The GA gardening gurus say that to grow them here you have to dig them up in the late summer and then refrigerate for several mos before replanting them.

Too much work for this ole gal- LOL! They're pretty but not that darned pretty!

I'm puzzled that anyone mentioned hybrid or non-hybrid status, with regard to bulbs. Normally bulbs come back from the same bulb, or the main bulb divides and makes more bulbs. Whether the bulb is a hybrid or not is irrelevant to the success of this kind of reproduction - it's only relevant for reproduction from seed.

That said, tulips do often have a poor record for returning from year to year - I usually assume that I'll just get one good year from regular (as opposed to species) tulips, and if I get more, then that's a pleasant surprise. I don't go out of my way to dig out the bulbs, but I also don't treat them with the same kind of respect and care that I do, say, daffodil bulbs - I know that daffodil bulbs are going to come back, so I'm careful not to damage or disrupt them.

As others have mentioned, I've read that part of the problem with tulips is that in the average garden they get too much moisture in the summer. I have sometimes considered dedicating a well-drained spot to tulips, and letting them bake there unwatered in the summer, but I never feel that I have enough space.

So I'd say that if you want to be absolutely positively sure that you'll get big spiffy tulips, yank them and replant them every year. If, like me, you're too lazy to plant all those bulbs every year, leave them in place and see what you get. (Or abandon tulips and go with something that returns more reliably, like daffodils.)

Burnet

Windy,

I am surprised they returned for you as well as they did - tulips are not great returners even in some northern areas and they sure aren't the best bulbs for the south. I have some that come back but most don't. I find the bulbs tend to divide into smaller bulbs and usually just produce small sets of leaves in subsequent years. Great for you that yours did come back! I would like to know what kind you planted.

Does anyone just plant in large containers so that after bloom fertilize, and drag the container to some unseen spot. This way, I can dump the container in late summer, early fall, pick out the bulbs, refrigerate for 6 to 8 weeks and then replant in the container.

regarding moisture in the garden
I live in Texas and am admittedly a bulbaholic. I plant lots of tulips. This year had been unusually dry, even for TX. I allowed the foliage to dry on a number of different Darwin Hybrids. Then, I pulled them up. I was going to do an experiment and store them then chill in the fall. Every bulb from my dry garden had split. They were planted shallowly, so they were not in the red clay that's about 10 inches beneath the surface. I did give additional water when things looked too dry, but you wouldn't say it was very wet at all.

cynthia