What do I do with the tulip plants that are dead now?
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Anonymous
| This is my first year that I planted tulips. They were great. But now the flowers have died, but the leaves are still green. What do I do with the plants now? I know they will come back next year, but do I just leave the leaves and only cut off the flowers? TIA. |
Anonymous
| If you let them go then they put energy into next year's blooms by bolstering root growth. Many people dead-head them because they don't like they way they look. I know still others who just pull them up and plant new bulbs each year. |
Anonymous
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There are different ways to approach. I usually deadhead, wait 2 weeks, and dig out the bulbs for next year. I find that tender bulbs like tulips don't do well in the ground from year to year.
But you can leave and see how they do next year. I wouldn't cut to the ground right away, unless you really don't like the look. As PP notes leaving them as is will promote more vigorous root/bulb growth. |
Anonymous
| I never remember to deadhead, but since the greens get all splayed out over other plants I usually gather them up and tie them together with one of their leaves (folding them over if they are really long). It's my one Martha Stewart moment a year. If the leaves are too short I'll use a piece of twine or something. When they are really dead in a few weeks I'll cut them off. |
Anonymous
| You should dead head (remove the dead flower part) because the bulb is putting stored energy into creating the seed pod forming where the bloom was. If you snap or cut that off, the energy goes into the growth and quality of the bulb, instead of the seed pod. You should let all the greens die away naturally. You should not tie into a knot as a PP said, but just leave because the leaves need to be fully exposed to the sun to absorb as much as possible. Experienced gardeners will usually set the bulbs in such a place that perennials coming in will hide the dying detritus. But in this area, your tulips aren't going to come back anyway, so you might as well hack them off. Even the tulips that are advertised as perennials don't work here - that's why you see the park service mowing them out every year. But everything I said works for daffodils. I have thousands of daffodils, which I deadhead but only put our about two newly-purchased tulips a year because I know they won't come back. Also the deer eat them . . so they are only for show and up close to the house. |
Anonymous
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Why wouldn't they come back here?
We had several tulips appear this spring (we bought the house late last spring, so we didn't know what was planted or where). We didn't plant them, so they must have been planted by the previous owners. |
Anonymous
| Our tulips more or less come back every year. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
| Tulips have always come back for me. |
Anonymous
| I don't have any problems with tulips coming back. Except this year, which I'm attributing the terrible winter. Only about half of mine came back. When the flower die, I cut the flower part off and fold over the green part with a rubber band. I do the same to daffodils. |
Anonymous
| my tulips never come back as well as the first year. Occasionally I'll get a scrappy tulip here and there. I just replant new bulbs every years. But the daffodils do great here (NoVA - clay soil). |
Anonymous
| Any recommendations on what type of tulips to buy to improve the chance of them coming back year after year? I bought a bag of red tulip bulbs mixed with crocus from home depot. Tons came out the first year, half the second and less than a dozen this year. Plus, they looked like dwarf tulips, not the tall longer lasting tulips that I've seen in other yards. |
Anonymous
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I was always taught to leave them alone until the 4th of July (when all the leaves will be yellowed) and then cut to the ground. If you want to clean up the yard before then, wrap/tie as a pp described (or use a rubber band, which is what I do). Has always worked well for me.
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