Spring gardening: growing tulips

The Tulip is a very colorful spring flower with a rich green stalk. The tulip isn’t just one flower but around one hundred different species all with the name of Tulip. This flower in general is native to Southern Europe. Tulips come in a wide range of colors from yellows, to purples to bright reds. A field full of cultivated Tulips is a site to behold in Europe. These plants are also very popular because they are perennials and they are bulbs, meaning they make for easy storage and can be taken with when you move.

A bulb is a similar to the roots in that it is underground, but it acts as storage to of sugars, and water to help the dormant Tulip survive the winter. Another type of bulb is the Onion that we pick up in the grocery store.

Spring gardening: growing tulips

Usually bulbs are kept in the ground in the garden over the winter so that they can come up in the spring, bright and early. Bulbed flowers are typically the first flowering plants to come up in the spring which adds even more to the charm of this flower.

Its also possible to force a bulb, like the Tulip to come up early, especially if kept indoors. This is achieved through changing the temperatures the the bulb is kept in. Usually you can store the bulbs in a cool place such as the basement for a couple of weeks to ‘convince’ the bulb that its going through winter. Then plant it like normal in a pot with an appropriate growing medium such as dirt or vermiculite and place it in a warmer area of the home away from drafts. This will ‘convince’ the bulb that it is now spring and time to start growing. Within a few more weeks you should have a very colorful flower. This may seem like a lot of time to get one flower, but the winter is long and even one plant can brighten up the home.