The Garlic is Taking Off-- It Must Almost Be Spring!

[flowerbug]

You all have so many good suggestions-- thank you!

For me, as much as I love them the shine has gone off tulips after last spring's rain and what I suspect may have been Tulip Fire disfiguring our many tulip patches. This year I might have to dig out all of the tulips that remain, and dispose of them.

sorry about the botrytis attacking your tulips, they sure don't like a lot of rain when they are flowering. after planting several thousand bulbs one year of many different varieties i also had that infect my large tulip bed. through the years it comes and goes for certain varieties and others don't seem to be done in by it. what also happened was that it spread to my tall lily plants and i ended up helping those fight back by putting down wood chips around them to keep the soil from splashing up on the plants. it did not help the tulips. i still have a much smaller patch of tulips and they will do ok since they are inside the fence.

chipmunks, squirrels or groundhogs come in and sometimes dig some up but they don't keep after them as much as the chipmunks keep going for the crocuses.

 

[Branching Out]

Several thousand tulips--- that would have made for an amazing display. Heavy sigh. It is soul crushing when you put that much effort in and the weather and critters foil your plans. Some of the tulip display in our local parks were hit hard by disease last year too; I suspect that they may need to take a few years off from growing tulips to reduce the fungal load. Given that I grow a lot of peonies (they were a mess last spring) and garlic I do not want a build up of botrytis that could spread from plant to plant. So I'm starting to really appreciate daffodils, and will grow more of those instead. Deer and rabbits don't seem to bother them, which is helpful.

According to this video from Flower Hill Farm featuring Dave Dowling (skip to the 4 minute mark if you wish), you should have a 7 year rotation for tulips. I found that shocking. My mom always just planted them and left them in the ground forever.

 

[Zeedman]

My mom always just planted them and left them in the ground forever.

Ditto. The only reason I ever dug up tulips was to divide them. The tulips that came with my house 20+ years ago are still healthy. They might even bloom one of these years, if the deer & rabbits ever leave them alone.

 

[flowerbug]

Several thousand tulips--- that would have made for an amazing display. Heavy sigh. It is soul crushing when you put that much effort in and the weather and critters foil your plans.

yes, this one large garden was about half of what i planted that year: (picture taken two or three years after)

the rest went in gardens out front. many of those gardens are now mostly gone and only a few tulips remain.

my tulip page:
https://www.anthive.com/project/tulips/

Some of the tulip display in our local parks were hit hard by disease last year too; I suspect that they may need to take a few years off from growing tulips to reduce the fungal load. Given that I grow a lot of peonies (they were a mess last spring) and garlic I do not want a build up of botrytis that could spread from plant to plant. So I'm starting to really appreciate daffodils, and will grow more of those instead. Deer and rabbits don't seem to bother them, which is helpful.

we have a lot of those still around.

i have to thin mine out and i'd give them away to anyone who wanted to help.

According to this video from Flower Hill Farm featuring Dave Dowling (skip to the 4 minute mark if you wish), you should have a 7 year rotation for tulips. I found that shocking. My mom always just planted them and left them in the ground forever.

i have left them in the ground and some of them do not do that well because it gets too wet here at times. others don't seem to mind it at all. the fancier the tulip the least it seems to be able to withstand abuse. the lily flowering tulips of a few kinds have held on the best (and the red slightly fringed ones i have).