Grow Tulips
If you want to impress everyone in the spring. Tulips are a versatile flower that can be used to create a variety of looks, from a display of exquisite taste to riotous colours.
They are also very easy to grow. The only mistake you could make is to not plant enough. Tulips love to have a good time.
How to grow tulips beautifully. The Italianate Garden at Hever Castle has a combination of tulips planted in pots, troughs, and borders.
Neil Miller, the head gardener at Hever castle, told me how to grow tulips when I spoke to him in the last week of March.
Hever Castle with spring bulbs reflecting in the moat. Hever Castle has a reputation for growing tulips.
Sue Oriel planted 2,500 Tulips in three raised beds standard for her nieces wedding. Unfortunately, the wedding has been postponed because of regulations. However, the tulips were a great example of how to fit a lot of tulips in a small area.
Stephanie Bates and Sue run Country Lane Flowers together. In their gardens they grow flowers in borders of domestic size for bouquets, events and weddings. Sue says, “We only use natural light and heat to grow.” All plants are grown in the garden from seed, bulbs, or cuttings. There are no extra lights or heat. Here, Sue shares her tips on how to grow cut flowers in your garden for a small business.
Sue Oriel has divided her one-acre garden into several different sections. She sells flowers from her former kitchen garden, and also has a cottage garden area near the house. The cottage garden has a tulip called ‘Menton,’ with rose leaves emerging.
If you’d rather watch a video than read an article, check out How To Grow Tulips at the Middlesized Garden channel on YouTube.
Tulips: How to select them
Neil says that while colour is the most important thing to consider when selecting tulips you should also take into consideration the height. Think about the location where you will be planting tulips, and compare the heights.
If you’re planting tulips in pots that are exposed, then it’s better to use shorter tulips because they will be blown around by the wind.
It’s really just a matter of personal taste.
Parrot tulips can be among the most spectacular flowers you grow. In my garden, I have a parrot-tulip named Estella Rijnveld. Neil Miller claims that the more showy tulips are less reliable. My Estella Rijnveld are slowly disappearing from the garden.
Tulips can be planted anywhere.
Planting some tulips on sunny borders and others in more shady ones is also a great idea. The tulips that are in direct sunlight will be the first to bloom (and will probably die off quickly). The tulips that are in the shade, however, will bloom later and for a longer period of time. ‘So you get a good progression,’ says Neil.
Neil prefers to plant his tulips together in large blocks. He believes they look better when planted as a group.
Hever Castle planted peach tulips in blocks of the same colour.
Sue prefers large blocks of tulips with high impact. She says, “I don’t do threes, fives, and sevens.” “I plant in thirteens. I also plant fifteens, and seventeens.”
This photo also shows the beauty of tulips when they are massed in a pot or border. This video shows more about this beautiful garden . Tulip ‘Bleu Aimable.’ Gry Iverslien. Photograph.
What plants pair well with tulips?
- Wallflowers
- Euphorbia
- Heuchera
- Forget-me-nots (Mysotis)
- Violas
- Evergreens with contrasting leaves
- Plants that have beautiful emerging foliage such as peonies or roses.
There are several displays at Hever Castle where violas and wallflowers are used with tulips. Heuchera make a good companion for tulips.
At Hever Castle, there are tulip blocks planted with yellow wallflowers. There are also borders that have tulips and wallflowers mixed together.
This border is planted with wallflowers, tulips, and other flowers in yellows, reds, and peaches.
The pink tulips in Hever Castle look great with the blue aubretia. Blue forget-me nots would have a similar impact.
Pink forget-me-nots or flowers that look like them are planted under the hot pink tulips. ).
Euphorbia robbiae (also known as Mediterranean spurge) and ‘Burgundy tulips’.
Plant tulips along with shrubs and perennials
Tulips can be planted in the borders of herbaceous plants to add color. Tulips add a splash of colour as the leaves of perennials cover the soil.
Neil also took into consideration the evergreen shrubs in choosing tulip color. This combination of dark copper Pittosporum “Tom Thumb” with bright carnival stripes Abu Hassan Tulips is particularly appealing to me.
The yellow and red stripes of the ‘Abu Hassan ‘tulip contrast with the dark copper leaves of Pittosporum “Tom Thumb”.
The dark red foliage of peonies and roses looks great against these tulips. You can find more about this beautiful garden in 3 alternatives to box topiary.
Sue Oriel’s garden has a beautiful combination of Burgundy tulips and emerging rose foliage. Roses need to be fed as they are hungry plants that don’t want competition.
The dark-leaved heuchera, in Sue Oriel’s cottage garden, is a perfect foil for the Amazing Grace tulips. See for more information about cottage garden style.
How to grow tulips potted
Neil explains that it is better to grow tulips on terracotta than plastic pots, as the plastic ones become hotter when in sunlight and colder during frost.
As you can see in these photos, Hever Castle has many pots and troughs that are filled with tulips.
In a trough, tall white tulips contrast with low dark violas. The best way to display tulips in pots is to fill them tightly and group them together.
Neil says to put chicken wire on the pots so that squirrels won’t dig up the bulbs and eat them. You can remove the chicken wire as soon as your tulips begin to bloom, as squirrels won’t be able to eat them at this stage.
Three shades of tulip – a harmonious pink, peach and contrasting white – in one pot. The different heights of tulips are part of what makes the pot so appealing. Photo by Gry Inverslien.
Three matching pots with tulips in one colour – an elegant and simple combination of three white tulips that are tinged pink. Gry Iverslien took the photograph.
Planting tulips
The tulips are planted at Hever Castle about three times as deep.
Sarah Raven told me to plant the tulips deep if I wanted them to return. She said to go as far as 12″! This was more than ten years ago. I planted 12″ Ballerina Tulips and they are still coming back every year.
Plant tulips a little later than other spring bulbs. Hever Castle plants them in November. However, many people wait until December or January. Ultingwick is a garden located in Essex that opens as part of the National Garden Scheme. It’s famous for its tulips. Philippa Burroughs, the head gardener and around 12,000 tulips are planted in January. Phillipa says, “As long they are all planted by the end January, we’re fine with that.”
How to prevent squirrels from digging your tulips up
Tulips are a favorite of squirrels. Neil says that squirrels love tulips.
They tested at Hever Castle to see what would deter squirrels from digging their bulbs. He says that a mixture of garlic and chilli powder sprinkled lightly on top of soil after planting stopped squirrels digging up the bulbs.
Cover the pots you use to plant tulips with chicken wire. Once the tulips begin to grow, remove the chicken wire as squirrels won’t be interested.
Tulips can be grown very close together.
Sue, who wants to grow the most tulips possible, dug the entire flower bed down to 6″ (the same size as Neil’s bulb which is 3x larger). Then they added garden compost and feed before planting the bulbs. She says that she plants 100-200 bulbs per square metre.
Four different types of tulips are planted here in the border of Sue Oriel’s old kitchen garden. This is now the center of her home-grown flower business. Country Lane Flowers.
Only choose the best bulbs. “Don’t grow tulips which are mouldy or smaller in size. They will have disappointing flowers.
She says, “We don’t use any grit for drainage.” This is now considered an old-fashioned method of planting tulips, and can cause water to pool under them.
She says, “We place them closer than the manufacturers recommend.” We leave approximately a tulip-bulb’s space between each bulb. It’s important not to let the tulips touch each other.
She then covers the bulbs in soil, garden compost and some additional feed. “That was November.”
Sue didn’t have to water her tulips during the winter. But once they started to sprout leaves, she did. She said, “I noticed that the leaves looked a little smaller than normal, which could be due to lack of water.” They are so close that they will be in competition for water.
Once they were watered, the plants grew.
After tulips have flowered, how to take care of them
Neil advises that you should deadhead the tulips to ensure flowers for next year. He says, however, that many tulips only bloom in their first year. It’s because of this that so many people dig up and replace them every year.
However, sometimes tulips do come back. In addition to the Ballerina Tulips, I have Queen of Night tulips that have returned over many years and yellow tulips planted by my predecessors more than 20 years ago.
Ballerina Tulips were very deeply planted around 12 years ago. These tulips continue to grow.
Neil advises that you feed your tulips with a tomato feed or a general-purpose fertilizer if you want them to grow back. Don’t remove any leaves until they have died. The bulb will fall off in your hands, and you can leave the rest in the ground.
Sue, a grower of cut flowers, does not cut the bulb off in the ground. She digs up the entire bulb with the attached flower to harvest tulips. You can wrap the bulb in newspaper, keep it in your fridge for a couple of days and then cut it only when you are ready to use it.
She says that a locally grown tulip dug up in this way will last up to two weeks in a vase. She says that supermarket flowers, which have been chilled and flown for a considerable time after they’ve been cut from the bulb, are already dead. They won’t stay as long in a vase.