Questions about chilling tulips

Hello all you fantastic people!

I have some questions about chilling tulips, but remember that I am "new" to tulips and just started gardening about 2 years ago.

Last year I picked up some sale rack tulips at WalMart at the end of the season and put them in the ground right away. I have no idea what type or cultivar.

Simultaneously, I ordered some "Blue Diamond" double late tulips from blooming bulb and put those in the ground also.

The ones from blooming bulb came up and did bloom beautifully, but the Wal Mart tulips only showed foliage, no blooms.

Now, I am being told that any tulips I buy must be chilled in the refrigerator for 8 weeks and seeing how I did not do this to either set of bulbs last year, I now have some questions. I'm in zone 8b but many years we have weather more like 9a.

Should I expect any tulips that I purchase to have been prechilled, or is this something extra that I'd have to pay for?

I did not buy the tulips as prechilled from blooming bulb but apparently they were.

Now I have ordered lots more tulips this year from blooming bulb, and kvb wholesale online. What do you guys in the warmer zones do when you receive your bulbs?

Do you automatically chill them 8 weeks?

I delayed shipping of all of my fall bulbs until mid-late October. If I do need to chill them, will that be enough time before planting?

BTW I dug up the Wal Mart tulips today and have them in the fridge.

Sorry for all the questions, thanks for your patience!

I have about your experience with tulips although I've been gardening for years:lol: I bought about 12 new varieties this season through the co-ops here and am planning on prechilling them.

As far as I'm aware, unless you are purchasing bulbs that are listed as "Prechilled", which are of course, higher in price due to the extra time/step involved in chilling them then what you buy pretty much everywhere are not prechilled.

I've had a few people here say 6 weeks of chilling before planting. There is no guarantee of a second season on tulips. I think this is especially true in the warmer zones. I want to say its either Darwin or Triumph varieties that have the best possibility of coming back but for sure I've been told to try the smaller species tulips for naturalizing and hardiness. One DGer remembered her mom in New Orleans lifting her tulips after the leaves died back and storing them in her garage in pantyhose until it was time to prechill in late summer/early fall in time for planting.

I have also been told that as long as your soil is still workable (not frozen:lol:) you can plant bulbs. I have some of my orders coming a bit later since we have a pretty warm fall around here and my summer stuff is still going and I'm a wuss about cutting back a blooming plant:LOL:

Hopefully someone with some experience will pop in so I can find out what the process is on this too=)

Donna

I chill mine for 8-10 weeks as soon as I get them (tulips), and generally don't plant any earlier than sometime in December. The Single Lates do the best for me. I was lucky to get a significant number of 2nd year blooms in my garden this spring in an area on top of a small hill where the soil drains well and we don't water much. Normally however, like you guys, I consider tulips to be annuals. Sometimes store-bought bulbs are smaller and less likely to bloom as nicely as bulbs you can get online from the better nurseries. Tulip bulbs are relatively inexpensive compared to other bulbs, and I would generally not go to the trouble to dig them up each summer for cooling unless you have a special variety you want to save. In warm climates and especially in moist soil, in my experience, they tend to quickly split into small bulbs which are usually not viable for further blooming. If you got some to bloom with no cooling where you are, Mini, that is great - but I looked you up on a map and you are about the same latitude as I am in DFW, so I am surprised about your comments about how warm your climate is. Maybe you got more cold than you thought and it was enough to spur blooming this particular year. I know tulips like a very dry soil in summer. I probably had two dozen return for me as well, and we did have a couple decent snows.

I am new to the site but have been gardening for over 10 years.

I chill my Tulips for 8 weeks as well. I usually plant my Tulips and Hyacinths in November, they bloom in late February and do not expect them to come back.

Be careful when chilling your bulbs, that you do not have apples in the fridge. I hear the gas that apples put off is not good for the bulbs. I have a small mini fridge I put my bulbs in.

What other bulbs (besides tulips) need to be chilled before planting or in order to bloom? Where would you find this info out?

I just happened to see this on colorblends' site (shopping!) :

The following bulbs do NOT need to be pre-chilled:

Allium
Hyacinthoides
Ipheion
Leucojum
Narcissus (Daffodils)

thanks, I'll log that info into my bulb notebook.