Tidbits about Tulips
Gardening Tulips:
Provided by landscaping and gardening expert, Jim Davis of Moore Landscapes, Inc.
• Tulips should be planted in the fall at a 6” depth.
• While the hole is exposed, apply bone meal over the top of the tulip bulb and then cover with soil. Water in the bulb like you would a summer flower.
• Tulip bulbs need to set their roots over winter to produce a good show. A proper root system is very important for the life of the tulip bulb.
• In spring once the flower head has flowered, remove the flower head leaving the stalk. When the green stalk turns all brown, cut it at ground level. The flower stalk takes in sunlight (the process of photosynthesis) enabling the plant bulb to reproduce again next year.
Did you know?
• Tulips can grow up to 27” tall
• Tulips are the third biggest selling flower in Holland.
• Today Holland is the chief source of tulip bulbs for most of the world.
• It was through Turkey that tulips reached Western Europe and Holland. Gardeners in Europe noticed a resemblance between the tulip shape and Turkish headwear, naming the flower “tulipan,” from “tuliblend”, the Turkish word for “turban”. The French then called it “tulipe”, and so spawned the English word “tulip”.
• Tulips come in over 3,000 registered cultivated varieties, and there are around 100 species of tulip.
• Generally, tulips have one flower per stem. However, a few species may have up to four flowers per stem.
• Tulips have a lifespan of three to seven days.
• The Netherlands produce approximately nine billion flower bulbs annually. Evenly distributed, this number would allow for almost two flower bulbs for every person on the planet.
• The Dutch are very proud of their flower bulbs. Flower bulbs in the Netherlands are both a product and a passion. Each bulb, they like to say, holds a promise - a promise of a world alive with color and good cheer, from the last snows of winter through the first frosts of autumn.
• Tulips don’t know when to stop! That is their special charm. Other flowers stay put once cut. Not the tulip. Tulips keep growing in the vase — gaining an inch in height or more.