Planting, Growing, and Caring for Tulips
The Almanac Garden Planner - Use It Free for 7 Days!
Plan your 2025 garden with our award-winning Garden Planner.
Planting
Tulips prefer a site with full or afternoon sun. In Zones 7 and 8, choose a shady site or one with morning sun only, as tulips don’t like a lot of heat.
The soil must be well-draining, neutral to slightly acidic, fertile, and dry or sandy. All tulips dislike areas with excessive moisture. Prepare the garden bed by using a garden fork or tiller to loosen the soil to a depth of 12 to 15 inches, then mix in a 2- to 4-inch layer of compost.
Tall varieties should be sheltered from strong winds.
When to Plant Tulips
- Plant tulip bulbs in the fall, 6 to 8 weeks before a hard, ground-freezing frost is expected. The bulbs need time to establish themselves. Planting too early leads to disease problems. See local frost dates.
- A good rule of thumb is to plant bulbs when the average nighttime temperatures in your area are in the 40s.
- In colder northern climates, plant in September or October. In warmer climates, plant bulbs in December (or even later).
- To find the best dates, consult our fall bulb planting chart.
- Nature never intended bulbs to loll about above ground, so don’t delay planting the bulbs after purchase.
- In southern climates with mild winters, plant bulbs in late November or December. The bulbs will need to be chilled in the refrigerator for about 12 weeks before planting. (Bulb suppliers often offer pre-chilled bulbs for sale, too.)
- If you miss planting your bulbs at the optimal time, don’t wait for spring or next fall. Bulbs aren’t like seeds. Even if you find an unplanted sack of tulips or daffodils in January or February, plant them and take your chances. See more about planting tulips in winter.
How to Plant Tulips
- Plant bulbs fairly deep—8 inches deep, or about three times the height of the bulb. Dig a hole deeper than that in order to loosen the soil and allow for drainage. In clay soils, plant 3 to 6 inches deep instead.
- Space bulbs 4 to 6 inches apart.
- Set the bulb in the hole with the pointy end up. Cover with soil and press soil firmly.
- Water bulbs right after planting. Although they can’t bear wet feet, bulbs need water to trigger growth.
- If you’re planning to raise perennial tulips, feed them a balanced fertilizer when you plant them in the fall. Bulbs are their own complete storage system and contain all of the nutrients they need for one year. Use organic material, compost, or a balanced time-release bulb food.
- To deter mice and moles—if they have been a problem—put holly or any other thorny leaves in the planting holes. Some gardeners use kitty litter or crushed gravel. If ravenous voles and rodents are a real problem, you may need to take stronger measures, such as planting bulbs in buried wire cages.
- Don’t lose hope if you’re planting your tulips later in the season—just follow these tips.
Growing
- If it rains weekly, do not water. However, if there is a dry spell and it does not rain, you should water the bulbs weekly until the ground freezes.
- Rainy summers, irrigation systems, and wet soil are death to tulips. Never deliberately water a bulb bed unless in a drought. Wet soil leads to fungus and disease and can rot bulbs. Add shredded pine bark, sand, or any other rough material to the soil to foster swift drainage.
- Apply compost annually to provide nutrients needed for future blooms.
- In the spring, when leaves emerge, feed your tulip the same bulb food or bone meal you used at planting time. Water well.
- Deadhead tulips as soon as they go by, but do not remove the leaves!
- Allow the leaves to remain on the plants for about 6 weeks after flowering. The tulips need their foliage to gather energy for next year’s blooms! After the foliage turns yellow and dies back, it can be pruned off.
- Large varieties may need replanting every few years; small types usually multiply and spread on their own.
Tulip flowers may be single, double, ruffled, fringed, or lily-shaped, depending on the variety.
- ‘Cracker’ tulip: purple, pink, and lilac petals; midseason bloomer
- ‘Ile de France’: red blooms on stems to 20 inches tall; midseason bloomer
- ‘Marilyn’: large, ruffled, candy cane-color flower; late-season bloomer
- ‘Spring Green’: creamy-white petals feathered with green; late-season bloomer
- ‘Renown’: hot pink, egg-shape flower; late-season bloomer
Wild, or “species,” tulips are small in size, ranging in height from 3 to 8 inches. They are tougher than hybrids. Rock and herb gardens are ideal places to plant them. They look stunning when planted in large groupings.
- For early to midspring bloom time: Tulipa bakeri, T. batalinii, T. humilis, T. kaufmanniana, T. turkestanica
- For later blooming time: T. linifolia, T. neustreuvae, T. sprengeri, T. vvedenskyi
- For multicolor varieties: T. biflora, T. greigii ‘Quebec’, T. praestans ‘Fusilier’ and ‘Unicum’, T. tarda, T. turkestanica
- For a container: T. kaufmanniana ‘Goudstuk’
- For (mottled) foliage: T. greigii (mottled or striped), T. fosteriana ‘Juan’, T. kaufmanniana ‘Heart’s Delight’
- For fragrance: T. aucheriana, T. biflora, T. saxatilis, T. sylvestris, T. turkestanica
- For warmer regions: Lady tulip (T. clusiana), Candia tulip (T. saxatilis), and Florentine tulip (T. sylvestris) overwinter in the South or mild-winter areas of the West (Zones 8 to 10) without the need of a chilling period
There are so many beautiful varieties of tulips. Explore catalogs and experiment in your garden!
Catherine Boeckmann
ADVERTISEMENT
Unfortunately, it is unlikely that the tulip bulbs would rebloom during the same year. You can remove any remaining flowering stalks, but keep the leaves, if they are still there, as that will allow the plant to make food for the coming winter/spring. Some tulip types may not flower the following year, but others may bloom for several years.
In most northern areas, you can keep the bulbs in the ground over winter. (If they are in containers, though, they will need extra protection.) In warm climate areas (Zones 7b to 10), to increase the chance for healthy blooms next year, you may need to dig bulbs up after foliage has browned/died and store for about 10 to 12 weeks in a cool/dark place (such as an unheated garage, or in a bag in the refrigerator crisper away from fruit/veggies, some of which emit ethylene gas that can damage the bulbs/developing flowers [ideally, it’s best to use a separate refrigerator away from food]) to give them a needed period of cold. Alternatively, in mild climates you can treat your tulips as annuals and buy new pre-chilled bulbs for the next planting season.
This past season I planted 150 tulip bulbs. They were all so beautiful. Then along came the high winds and lots of rain. I no longer have the flowering plants so can I cut them down to the roots now and leave the bulbs in the ground or do I need to take the bulbs up and replant them next season ?
Hi Betty,
Sounds like you had quite the tulip display!
After tulips have bloomed, you want to deadhead the flower blooms, but keep the leaves/foliage and let it die back naturally before removing it. This process can take several weeks. That is how the bulbs gather and store energy for next year’s growing season. You can leave the bulbs in the ground for next season. The only time you need to dig them up is when bulbs are not producing flowers, at which time they can be replaced with new bulbs during the fall planting time.
Lol all my tulips are planted by volunteer squirrels!
Can I replant the bulbs if I take them out of the soil in next fall
Yes, you can transplant them anytime after their foliage has died back. At that point, they are done gathering energy for next year’s blooms and can be moved!
Once blooms have passed and leaves are dead, do I dig up the bulbs and store for next fall? Can my tulip bed be used for other flowers or vegetables?
Tulips, daffodils, crocuses, hyacinth, and several others are winter-hardy bulbs, meaning that they can (and should) remain in the ground through winter. They need a period of cold weather (winter) to encourage them to bloom in the spring.
Wow, Such a nice article. please don't stop posting keep it up! I am also a gardener lover and write about
My tulips have now finished flowering. Waiting for leaves to die down I have noticed that four of them have something that looks as if it has a seed pod where the flower was. Is it worth taking them off and planting them ?
