Tulip Care

The crocus, anemone, narcissus and daffodil are all welcome harbingers of spring. However, growing tulips capture the essence of spring with bright colorful blooms that renew the earth with promise of summer color. The best part of growing tulips is watching them dance in the first breaths of spring. The second best part of growing tulips is tulip care. The reason is because once established, a tulip bed needs very little care at all!

Tulips originated in Central Asia where they grew in the wild. The word tulip means turban and comes from a Turkish word, turbend. Tulips were cultivated in Turkey as early as 1,000 AD. Today tulips are frequently associated with the Netherlands. In August of 1593, Carolus Clusius received a gift of tulip bulbs from his friend, Ogier Ghiselain de Busbecq, the ambassador of Constantinople. He planted the bulbs and the spring of 1594 gave birth to the first tulips of Holland. Clusiuss planting is still considered the birth of the Netherlands flower bulb business, which continues today, over 400 years later. The colorful flowers soon became major trading commodities. Different color strains and mutations were status symbols and in such high demand in the 1600s that tulips were often sold by estimated weight, even before they were lifted from the ground. Trading in tulip futures was dubbed as "tulpenwindhandel" (tulip wind trade). Soon this speculative trading got out of hand and the Dutch government introduced trade restrictions to quash it.

Growing tulips is easy. Tulips are spring flowering bulbs that should be planted in late autumn. Tulip bulbs are an excellent nutrient storage system that need little care besides water. Tulips prefer a bed of sandy, slightly alkaline soil with at least four hours of sunlight per day, but not direct sun. Today there are over 100 species of growing tulips and many hundreds of hybrids, primarily due to the extensive breeding programs and tulip care that began in the late sixteenth century.

Planting tulips is as simple as growing tulips. Bulbs should be spaced depending on the effect you want to create. The only rule is that they shouldnt be close enough to touch each other. Planting depth is also easy to calculate. As a rule of thumb, plant tulip bulbs at a depth of two to three times the height of the bulb. The most difficult part of planting tulips is remembering to put them root side down and pointed side up!