Tulips plus What?

I have about 75 tulip bulbs I ordered which I'm ready to plant once it gets a little colder. I understand that what you plant drives when they will bloom but what can I plant besides tulips in the Spring? I planted about 15 bulbs two years ago and they look great when they bloom. However, once they are done the area I reserved for the bulbs grow over with weeds and look unappealing. Is there a perennial or annual I can plant to complement the bulbs and continue the season so the bed looks nice throughout the Spring/Summer?

Any perennial that is tall enough to cover the tulip foliage as it yellows will work very well - just interplant various species of perennials between your tulips. A good way to achieve constant bloom is to grow many different kinds of perennials - they may individually have fairly short bloom periods, but cumulatively, you will have colour, variety and interest throughout the season.

This message was edited Sep 27, 2008 7:21 PM

Oops. Did you order pre-chilled bulbs? If not, in your area, if you plant them now, they won't get enough chilling hours and the blooms will be pitiful. And planting them in the spring would make it worse. In warmer areas of the U.S., they need pre-chilling in the veg. bin of the refrig. before you plant them in January. Please do a Google search for more information. In their native areas, the winters are quite cold.

dp72,

I ordered the bulbs from Breck's. They delivered them two days ago and they picked the date. Their literature says plant them right away. However, our local expert from the local botanical gardens says plant them around Halloween. They're now sitting in my refrigerator.

altagardener -I'm probably being dense, but I'll be planting the bulbs in a few weeks but won't put out perennial seeds until Spring. So, since I won't know the bulb exact location I'll wait until they break the ground to put in other flowers. Thank you for the advice.

Jeff

Jeff, if I were you I'd check around some more about the planting time for your tulip bulbs. Here in Central Texas we plant during December; Thanksgiving at the earliest. New Year's Day is the cut-off date. Your bulbs need to chill at least 6 weeks. Since you're in Zone 7a, you must be in northern Alabama, so it's possible you plant earlier there if your winters are colder.

As far as plants to go in with the tulips, johnny-jump ups would be nice; you'd put the bulbs in and then the violas over them. The tulips would come up through the violas and then the violas (johnny-jump-ups) would continue to bloom for several months after the tulips die back.
You'd want to consider the colors of each, naturally, so they complement each other and don't clash. If your tulips are a tall variety, you could even use regular pansies. The smaller violas are more cold-hardy, but we have had pansies survive right down to 5 degrees.

My most favorite companion for tulips in a bed is the old fashioned Wallflowers, they have perfume and come in all colours, it is too late to plant seeds now as these are Biennials so you plant the seeds late summer and plant the young plants out in situ October/November for flowering spring, they will flower right through till about June if you dead head them, some places sell the young plants ready for planting out any time now.
Another good companion plant is Forget-Me- Not's, but again, these are mostly annuals that flower at the same time as the Tulips, be careful as they will scatter seeds everywhere. Good luck. WeeNel.

I'm sure that wallflowers and forget-me-nots are lovely in Scotland, but they would burn up in no time in Alabama.

Wallflower and Forget-Me-Nots are grown all over the European continent and in hot countries like Morocco, if you can grow Tulips in your Temps then one would imagine you can also grow the others, they are growing over the cooler months from winter to spring not in the blazing hot summers, with enough watering as for the Tulips, they should be fine.WeeNel.

Jeff, please plant wallflowers and forget-me-nots along with your tulips, and report back to us along about April. Thanks.

Like this WeeNell?

Anglique tulips with forget me nots>

Tulips with Aubretia

Tulips with forget-me-nots and wallflowers in front the the Paris Conseratory.

Tulips w/ forget-me-nots is very a widely used planting scheme.

Too bad we are not wealthy, they look good in mass. Holland's Floriade display of early single tulips>

Red tulips and purple wallflowers caught my eye at Bois du Boulogne (a park).

Tulips with primroses in the foreground.

One plant that is under used is as a groundcover is Bellis. Tough as nails even in harsh winters. Bellis has a limited color range, red-white&pink. Many of my photos are out of focus because I had them printed/digitized from slides (slides taken in the late '80s) and the people who run the print machines are very sloppy. Even tho they are not clear they should give you an idea of what the plants look like when combined.

This is in front of the Conservatory of Flowers in SF, CA.

Hi Dale-a-gardener, your picture of the wall flowers and tulips brought back so many memories of my Dads garden, the perfume from the wall flower is wonderful, hard to believe these wallflowers are from the same family as the cabbages we eat eh, just goes to show, that something that is green and eaten also has a cousin that is perfumed and colourful. loved all your pictures, these are the types of spring bedding schemes we have been growing here for hundreds of years in UK. our parks are also laid out very much the same way. Thank you for that treat. WeeNel.

The pleasure was mine, too.

Blue iris's are pretty with tulips. I bought my Fall bulbs at Lowes this year, and they have packets of red tulips with blue iris's together. The picture on the package looks pretty so I am going to try it. However, of course, the blue iris's will only last as long (about) as the tulips, so they won't stay all Spring/Summer.

Spunkster, you are right about the Iris, but look on the bright side, your Tulips and Iris will give you many more years of pleasure if treated good, so just enjoy them when they are in bloom for spring, good luck. WeeNel.