Gardening ?, bulbs

[boiler717]

Sorry for not posting in gardening but I know this gets more traffic.

We purchased 180 tulip bulbs from Costco about a month ago. DH was supposed to plant them in early October while I was OOT. He forgot, and I just noticed the bulbs today. It was 29 this morning in Central Indiana. Did we totally miss our window? Costco will likely still allow us to return, or we can take the chance of planting this weekend (or rather, DH can because I'm OOT again).

[jhawks482]

Is there info on the packaging (planting zones and whatnot)? I would still plant them. Where I live, we've had a few nights of freezing temps, but it's still pretty warm during the day. Even in your area, I think you'd be pretty safe since it's just the first of November. In my experience, tulip bulbs are pretty forgiving (planting time, planting depth, etc).

[berrysweet]

I've always heard that it's fine to plant tulips until the ground is frozen.

Some people I know who live where they see especially cold winters add a layer of straw mulch, but I'm not really sure that would be necessary unless you were in northern Indiana.

[FoxInFiji]

Yup it's still OK to plant them. Things like perennials and shrubs need to be planted earlier so they get a couple weeks of warmer temperatures to send some roots out but bulbs you want to go dormant in the cold weather so it's fine to plant them later.

PS. Here's some planting tips for tulips: A few inches deeper than the depth on the package is OK and can make bulbs that are normally not consistently hardy in your area a little more hardy. Most of the bulbs from Costco have limited hardiness because they are using these packs for as many stores as possible and hardier bulbs cost more. By limited hardiness I mean they will bloom nicely for 1-2 years then fade the following year and not come up the year after that.

Critters LOVE tulip bulbs. Squirrels, chipmunks, moles, voles, deer, and even raccoons will have those suckers eaten faster than you can say "tulip." If you want bulbs to last you have to plant bulbs they don't like to eat like daffodils, alliums, and hyacinths -or- protect the tulip bulbs with a cage. For a cage just dig a deep row or patch, line the bottom and sides with chicken wire or the like, add a little soil, plant bulbs, add more soil to the top of the bulbs, add a chicken wire lid, and top with the rest of the soil. This is the only way you can guarantee they can't get to your bulbs.

When we first bought our house I bought a 50 count bag of tulips and a 25 count bag of hyacinths not knowing what I was doing I planted the tulips on either side of our driveway. The following year only 20 of those tulips came up and a bunch of them were in our ditch. The squirrels has transplanted them for me as a snack to eat later. :/ The following year only 5 of those came up and the third year I had none. It was mostly the chipmunks and squirrels eating them but also the fact that the cheap Costco bulbs aren't very hardy because the last few bulbs that were blooming were closed to the driveway in a very gravely area where the critters weren't wanting to dig. At the time I didn't know the first thing about gardening but now I understand why. In comparison we still have hundreds of daffodil varieties coming up around the property because the original owners were avid gardeners and they liked the color yellow (at least based on their plant selections they did). They have been thriving and multiplying for almost 40 years with no problems.

HTH and have fun planting!

[auntie]

Fox-

Tulips don't perform well year after year under the best circumstances. The only ones I've found that return reliably for up to 5 years and even increase the first couple are these from White Flower Farms-
www.whiteflowerfarm.com/tulips-perennial.html#

[FoxInFiji]

Nov 2, 2012 16:17:23 GMT -5 auntie said:

Fox-

Tulips don't perform well year after year under the best circumstances. The only ones I've found that return reliably for up to 5 years and even increase the first couple are these from White Flower Farms-
www.whiteflowerfarm.com/tulips-perennial.html#

Well I wasn't trying to get into latin names because non-gardener's eyes glaze over when I start to do that. But Tulipa kaufmanniana and Tulipa griegii are the most reliable perennial tulips in our zone 5 area. Our Master Gardener Association actually has not had good luck with any darwins lasting for more than 5 years where as the kaufmanniana and griegii varieties have. Our zone 5 has a lot of snow cover though. If you're in a zone 6 (I think the op is around this zone) with little to no snow cover you may actually have a harder time with tulip bulbs unless they are well mulched. Also they don't like to have wet roots and it's best if you deadhead them right after they are done so they don't waste energy trying to go to seed...that can lead to a year of leaves but no flowers.

I buy all of my tulips bulbs from local garden centers where I can pick out the better longer lasting varieties now. We have some extensive bulb producers in our state that are working on producing a better selection of hardier bulbs. But Costco or hardware stores are still good for less picky bulbs like daffodils.

[auntie]

Thanks for the information. Good to know.

My SIL, who is a master gardener, sent me the WFF perennials. They were at my old house and got dug out when the house was razed after a flood. I got about 4 years out of them in a zone 6 (more like zone 7 because we were in a small river valley right on water) She's in Indianapolis and gets way more snow cover than we do.

[FoxInFiji]

Hmm I might have to try a few of those next year then! Thanks. I love the look of the Darwins. They are just so classic. Sometimes it pays to be a risk taker. The worst that could happen is I get a few good years out of them right? Just as long as the buyer knows not to expect them to last +30 years like our daffs have.

[boiler717]

Thanks for help! I didn't realize tulips were so fickle. At our old house we had them ALL over our front yard and couldn't get rid of them!