Generally the blooms are smaller and possibly the stems are shorter. I don't recall the stems being any weaker. It kind of depends exactly which variety of tulips that you have. A very vigorous variety may bloom very well even though the bulbs are on the small side.

If they are too small, they won't bloom. You may need to grow them on for a year to blooming size.

I agree with the above- if they are too small they don't have enough energy to bloom well, if at all. It takes a year or two in the ground for them to 'bulk up' when they are small. If they are species tulips the bulbs are generally on the small side; nothing wrong with them.

One thing I am not sure I understand, when you said getting bigger is irrelevant? Do you keep your tulips for only one spring and then switch them out for new kinds?
CMK

ItÂs the same thing for me here too. Conditions are not right for them to come back reliably. Species tulips are the best, so far, though even those get smaller and multi-stemmed after about 4 years. Greigii, Kaufmannia and other species types come back. Darwins persist a few years too but not as well as the species. Parrot, doubles, single early, single late: those are 1-2 years looking decent, tops. Lily flowered die out fastest for me. I try not to spend much money on any of them, especially since they require extra work at planting by installing hardware cloth over them.

I also donÂt dig up the old ones, too much work. Although I always think I should when the ugly wide foliage shows up. Funny how the leaves look extra ugly when you know they will not be followed by a flower.

I had been looking at that BloomingBulb site. I have not used them so far. Were all the tulips you got there small? I wonder about their other stuff, I was considering them for some lilies next year. I normally buy tulips locally and look the packs over first. Partly because I am trying only to buy when I know I have a good-weather window to plant. I used Van Engelen a lot in the past but not for tulips.

Lol! Several people have mentioned to me that they like to replace tulips yearly and throw out the old. It just kills me to hear that! I think I would go dumpster diving if I lived closer to them ;-)

That is interesting. I know Southern gardeners cannot grow Tulips easily, but I didn't know people in my zone had trouble. Tulips do come back fairly reliably here, even some of the hybrids (though the Peony kind don't seem all that vigorous). Granted, there are a few that don't turn out to be robust, but sometimes it is my fault for planting them in too much shade or in an area with hard-packed soil. The best tulip I have is one passed down the generations from my grandmother some 25 years ago. It is an orange parrot and multiplies like crazy, even in a slightly shaded spot.

If it makes you feel any better, I have TERRIBLE luck with daffs- they hate me! Don't know why I can't get them to grow, the neighbors have a huge patch of them.
CMK

expect to be let down.. based on the ratio of what you paid.. as compared to what little show you get ...

i expected this to be another in a long line of michigan bulb diatribes ...

and wondered why you would be ordering from such diabolical sellers ...

expect nothing.. and hope to be pleasantly surprised ...

good luck

ken

There are some 'hints' to look for in descriptions from catalogues selling bulbs. Most of the really reputable firms will give you a bulb size on tulip. Like #12 or #10. Some will use vaguer terms like top-size, mid-size, or less often grade them by number #1, #2. You know exactly what you are getting then, when your order.

Look also for the terms "for forcing", "for landscape", for "naturalising". Bulbs for forcing are the largest, and most expensive because they'll be grown for things like florist shops. IOW it's all about the bloom.

Bulbs for landscaping, are the types you'd most likely find at good garden centers or for top prices at box stores. IOW the standard size you'd expect to see.

When you get to bulbs for naturalising.......well.........if they're healthy there is nothing wrong with them. But if your intentions are to do a planting with bulbs to leave in perpetually and spread, then they're suitable but small. Sometimes so small you can only expect foliage for a year or two. The upside is they're inexpensive and when you need thousands, it's often the way to go.

But, no vendor should pass of bulbs for naturalising as a fully mature bulb. They're not.....it takes a couple years for a new bulb to reach size to bloom.

So, if your catalogue or mail-order ads don't give bulb size, are wow so cheap! they're probably babies.

Zone doesn't have a whole lot to do with tulip coming back every year..........zones do a poor job about explaining what kind of climate you live in. It can vary tremendously from two different locations with the same zone number. What is most important are summer conditions when the plant is dormant. Rainfall and temp then.

wow calliope; how did you learn all this?! wicked learned you are about this. I have some questions:
* would you finish your detailed and articulate explanation by telling us about the summer rain and temp conditions that enable tulips to bloom in consecutive years? isn't it also true that some bulbs are known as longer or shorter lasting?
*where are you in z.6 and what are your own experiences w/ reblooming tulips?

*Lastly, I am preparing a teaching website for our arboretum gardens, with a large section on bulbs. would you let me quote your posts on this thread and accompany them w/ your name? if you prefer, you could contact me at cottonarboretum@comcast.net

thanks so much for this education; you are very helpful.
best,
mindy

Quote: "If it makes you feel any better, I have TERRIBLE luck with daffs- they hate me! Don't know why I can't get them to grow, the neighbors have a huge patch of them."

You and me both! Mine always peter out after the first year.

I haven't grown any tulips in a few years, though I often debate doing so. I always put in a handful of hyacinth bulbs - the most glorious spring fragrance, an olfactory joy! I dig and replace every year, though - they just don't pack a punch after the first year.

I'm a professional grower and I have forced bulbs for many years. Also I'm a lover of bulbs.

I'm sure you'll find some variance in longevity of bulbs by variety, but it's also about where they're planted and what kind of weather conditions you experience.

Tulips are indigenous to Asia minor. Plants always do best when you mimic their native growing conditions. Think of other plants from that area. Domancy is a survival mechanism of a plant. Some plants are dormant to survive winter, some summer. Bulb plants are no exception.......They dry up/die back/ return for the same reason.

Wet summers are one of the worst culprits of tulip. Your planting site has to be very well drained. I have some in my rock garden on a hill I've had for almost twenty years, and my Mother has some we brought from France still alive and well since the early 1960s. Her's are also planted on a hill.

I've had my best success of returning with Gregii, Kaufmaniana and the lily flowered.....also the small species tulip like Turkistanica.

When I lived in Europe, we were relatively close to a town called La Tranche in France. There were just endless fields of tulip and I was a teenager then, but imagine they were propagation fields. When you think of places like that, or like Holland where they are also propagated it's your answer. Those are the climates, with their more gentle summers and winters they must like. More gentle weather than where I live now.

I am located in Appalachian Ohio, and heartland U.S.A does not have the moderating temperatures of coastal Europe. Neither are zone conditions indicative of our REAL temperature extremes. I've forced Easter lilies at 72 when it was minus twenty three outside. And a summer day can be 102 or in the high forties like it was last summer. sigh. Poor tulips. So, this year I planted another couple hundred to the other hundreds and hundreds I've planted over the years. When I see the first ones blooming in spring???? They're priceless.

Reblooming tulips? Really remontant? I don't know of any. I have planted the multiple stemmed tulips. I think praestans Fusilier is one of them. I had good luck with them, charming planted in ground, but not good for cuts because the stems are short. Instead of trying for one plant with multiple stems I'd rather mix species who have different bloomtimes. I've kept tulip in bloom for three to four months that way.

I'll give you an email in the next day or so concerning your project, or better yet you can email through my GW address. I'm sure you can find better sources for quoting than I, but I'd be glad to help if I'm able.

This thread is so interesting to me! :)

Tulips are, hands-down, my favorite flower. I've been gardening for 15+ years, and the first year I started at our new house, I bought 250 tulips. The show the first year was breathtaking! The second year, maybe 20 of them bloomed. !!! What?!?!

My neighbor at the time was from Ohio, and she swore to me that tulips came back every year there, very reliably. I tried again in a different spot. Same results. And so it went for a few years...

Eventually I gave up and started treating them like an annual, digging them out when they were done and replacing the following fall. I don't mind it too much because it's a good opportunity to try different colors and combinations.

I read somewhere that planting them a foot deep will help them return. Also that Darwins return better than others. But I guess I've resigned myself at this point to replacing every year. It sounds like if you don't have exactly the right weather it doesn't matter what you do. After all these years, I never really believed that they would return for anyone, anywhere! Who knew it was just that they are that finicky?

connie, since we now know calliope's location vis a vis yours,let's find out what your soil is like. Ga. is famous for clay; how bout TN?

I myself am kicking myself major because (and no, i am NOT going to tell him)My Love just finished hurting/endangering his back planting 150 daff bulbs where the soil is hard packed and crummy( I was too stupid to remember the drainage issue) so imagine how i feel knowing that all that time and chiropracting and money- were wasted because of my dumbdumbness. major sigh. well, at least i ordered another 125 last night and they are going into well drained trenches above a rock wall........... Lesson learned.
best,
mindy
p.s. calliope, you are awfully articulate as a writer; I wish you would consider submitting something to Fine Gardening etc. Well informed people who are also good communicators/writers are very hard to come by. vraiment.

I just wanted to remind you that BloomingBulb offers a guarantee on the plants and bulbs they sell. I ordered from them last Fall and all of the tulips they sent me bloomed nicely in the Spring. The previous Spring I ordered some "pre-chilled" daffodil bulbs that arrived in poor condition and the promptly sent me a refund. I've ordered again from them this Fall and the tulip sizes seem fine to me. However, I have never ordered from Van Engelen and can't compare.

Goo luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: BB guarantee

My yard at our previous house was almost solid clay. It was the approximate consistency of chewed bubble gum - no joke. Of course we had to amend anywhere we put a bed.

The soil at this house seems luxuriously rich by comparison.

elleni,thanks so much for that info and link. And thanks again for posting about this co. If you hadn't posted about them, i never would have had bulbs at this late date. Both van engelen and scheeper's ,vendors for my 1st shipment this year( order placed in june)and van bourgondien( a past vendor)had sold out of everything when you posted about bloomingbulb's sale; so it was great to find a vendor with extensive inventory and to be able to put in hundreds of more bulbs , thanks to your post! I'm hoping to repay you by posting some photos of your 'babies' next spring!
best,
mindy

I have ordered bulbs from VE, Scheepers and Bluestone. The first two have excellent quality and delivery times and you pay for what you get. They run out early.

When I got my first Colorblends catalogue a couple of years ago I was critical of it. It looked like so much marketing to me. It seemed to me they were doing the work that garderners usually do: combining different varieties and selling them as "package" for impact.

That's still true, but I still ordered some individual items, not combos. These were the biggest damn bulbs I've ever seen. Beautiful and healthy. And they arrived in 2 days....from the date of ordering.

They are not more expensive than Scheepers and VE. They don't have the variety, but if they have what you want I suggest you give them a try.

I hope you will follow up with them if you happen to not get expected results in the Spring. I wouldn't worry though. We'll both have lots of pics to post in the Spring. Did you order from Van Engelen this year? How much bigger were the VE tulip bulbs?

I posted a list of all the bulbs I planted (just finished this weekend) this Fall over in the "Who has finished" thread in the Bulbs forum. I am still kind of sad I did not place just one more order!

Thx much for this tip.I had never heard of colorblends but it seems to be a very well done catalogue with certainly more info about bulb sizing than many other catalogues. Good variety too.
The page i've linked to below answers some of my key questions about sizing.

It is really interesting to me that this catalogue as well as the others i mentioned- are all sold out of almost every item, but that bloomingbulb.com still has some good stock! isn't that strange? i wonder what happens to unsold stock.
mindy

Here is a link that might be useful: size matters pg. from colorblends catalogue

@arbo_retum: Thanks for that link. I admit, all the tulips I've ever gotten, from several online shops, are more like the one on the right in the photo! I'm happy with the results I've gotten over the years, but maybe I just don't know what I'm missing!

well, it seems like ida is the expert here because she's actually rcvd their bulbs before. so what would be fun is for you to order some from colorblend next yr and tell us the result in TWO YEARS!!!! arggggh! WHO is going to remember to follow up that far in the future?????!!
best,
mindy

Well, I just might remember. Miracles do happen, though not ususally with my memory. The experiment will better than you imagine. I also planted hundreds of Bluestone muscari and was really mad when they ran out. But I was determined to finish the border, so I order from Colorblends. The muscari were at least 2 if not 2.5 times bigger. But we'll see in two years.

BTW, the idea of the blue sweep on the back hill was yours, Mindy, about 4 or 5 years ago. It takes me a while to get around to some projects.

I inherited some yellow tulips from my mother 4 years ago. Maybe it was 5 anyway last year they started to heave and I put more soil over them because I did not have time to deal with them. This spring they came up and they were beautiful however way too many leaves so I dug them up after they bloomed and had finished. And I have at least 100 bulbs. I am asking this because some of the bulbs are smaller some are quite large. Will the small bulb bloom? And if these bulbs die out every year why do mind keep blooming? I have a few varieties but we're given many so I'm not sure what they are.