Last year, New Zealand's largest mail order bulbs supplier Bulbs Direct (with whom I have a collaboration) kindly gave me a substantial discount on my spring bulbs order, enabling me to grow a whopping 49 different tulip varieties in winter. I have already featured the results of my tulip growing trial in a series of articles in my free weekly gardening newsletter, which is accessible on my website. I have held off writing a blog post until the new year, because I wanted the timing to coincide with the launch of Bulbs Direct's spring bulbs catalogue for 2023, when items are available for purchase and orders are being taken.
I will try my best to make this write up different to the articles in my newsletters because I don't want to simply reiterate what I have already written. For extensive coverage of all of the 49 varieties that I grew, including photos, I suggest that you refer to my newsletters if you are interested. The series starts with Volume 5, Issue 6 on 11 November 2022 and ends with Volume 5, Issue 14 on 6 January 2023. I planted all the tulip bulbs in mid-June, which is a bit later than normal. Usually I try to get all my spring bulbs into the ground by the end of May, but I was slightly delayed because the owner had Covid and had to self-isolate. He could only send out the bulbs after he had returned to work. It didn't actually matter (or indeed it was a good thing) because I think I had my best display of tulips ever last winter. The important thing was that the bulbs were pre-chilled, which Bulbs Direct kindly did for me free of charge. They will happily do that for other customers, too. Whether you need to chill your tulip bulbs prior to planting depends on where you live. As winters in Auckland are relatively mild, in order for them to flower well, tulip bulbs need to be chilled for around eight weeks prior to planting. If you don't do this, they will still probably flower, but the stems will be shorter. You can pop them in the veggie crisper section of the fridge, but it’s a good idea to pop an ethylene sachet in with them as any fruit and veggies stored in the fridge release a gas which may cause your bulbs not to flower. Because I had such a large order and planted over 600 tulips, they wouldn’t all fit in the fridge, which is why I was so grateful to Bulbs Direct for using their chiller and doing it for me. As bulbs contain all the essential nutrients in order to flower, all I did was add a little bulb fertiliser to the ground prior to planting. I used bulb baskets when planting my tulips. You don't have to do this, but it kept all the bulbs together, making it easier at the end of the season when I lifted them. In Auckland, tulips tend not to reflower that well the following season, so I treat them as an annual and purchase fresh bulbs every year. I have found that tulips can be planted quite close together. This means you can grow a lot of tulips even if you don’t have much space. Indeed they look much more dramatic and make more of an impact when planted close together when they flower. I was very careful with labelling all of the different varieties so I knew which was which when it came to cutting and photographing them. This proved to be a good idea as the single white varieties flowered around the same time and all looked the same to me. If you are keen on a continuous display of tulips, I suggest planting different varieties as they won’t all flower at the same time. Roughly speaking, tulips can be categorised into early, mid-season and late flowering varieties. Planting a mixture of single, peony and parrot varieties can further extend your growing season. Generally speaking, tulips are sold in a minimum quantity of five bulbs. You can usually also get them in lots of 25 and 100 from mail order bulbs suppliers. If you require different quantities, you could always try checking with the supplier to see if they can accommodate you. Some mail order suppliers might offer special discounts for flower farmers, who require larger quantities of the same variety to sell commercially at the flower auction or to wholesalers. What I grew in the trial Single flowering varieties White: White Dynasty, Snowboard, Clearwater, Antarctica, White Dream Red: Lalibella, London, Red Rover, Ile de France, Strong Love Yellow: Friendship, Balroyal Honey, Yellow Flight, Strong Gold, Golden Parade and Camargue Orange: Ad Rem, Orange Babies, Orange Juice, Temples Favourite Pink: Pink Impression, Dynasty, Piet Veerman, Carola, Anaconda, Grand Style, Purk Purple: Alibi, Cum Laude, Saigon, Heydar Eliyev The Princess varieties Pretty Princess, Princess Irene Bicolour single varieties Dow Jones, Leen Van Der Mark, Karlijn, Flaming Kiss Parrot varieties Irene Parrot, Mascotte Peony varieties (double flowering tulips) Double Price, Verona, Columbus, Flash Point, Wyndham, Menton Unique, Renown Unique, Ridgedale, Red Princess, Orange Princess I would really like to develop this into a series of blog posts and cover the different varieties I grew in more detail. It may be of interest to other gardeners in New Zealand and even overseas, as some of these varieties may be available there, too.
1 Comment
John Vernon
6/9/2023 07:48:15 pm
Hi I am trying to grow potted tulips for sale later...Not sure how I will get on! Mixed colours, Growing in rich cow and sand material from sand trap at cowshed. We farm at 1300 feet on side of Mt Taranaki so it gets pretty narly up here. Pots are standing on pallets above ground. Any helpful comments appreciated. Thanks John
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