When is the best time to plant tulip bulbs?

The general rule is that you plant the flower bulbs that bloom in the spring in the fall. This certainly applies to most flower bulbs, but for the Tulip it is better to wait until later in the fall. A Tulip bulb does not like to be planted in soil that is too warm. In somewhat warm soil, fungi and other diseases are more active than in colder soil and the Tulip can suffer from this. But when is the soil cold enough? I cannot give an exact date as an answer to this, after all, it stays warm longer in France than in Sweden. But you can look around you, Mother Nature can tell you. When the leaves of the trees start to fall, the soil is cold enough. Leaves of trees quickly change color when the nights get cold and winter is approaching. These cold nights also cool the soil quickly, now the Tulips can safely go into the ground.

Tulipa Palmyra

The Tulip not only benefits from the reduced activity of pathogens, at lower soil temperatures (below 10 degrees Celsius) it also develops roots more quickly, which means it will immediately have more resistance.

Velvet Tulip mixture Prosecco

Another question we often encounter is why Tulips cannot be planted in the spring. Actually, it is a logical question, if you plant it at the beginning of May, it can easily flower at the end of May. Many plants show flowers after a few months of planting, but unfortunately this does not apply to Tulips and other spring-flowering bulbs. All flower bulbs that flower in the spring will not flower if it has not yet been winter. They need this period of cold to start growing.

Tulipa Maureen

This period of cold is a rest period of the flower bulbs in which the starch in the bulb is converted into sugars. These sugars are needed again to make the flower bulb bloom quickly in the spring, when the weather warms up. Without winter there is no spring and therefore without winter there are no spring-blooming flower bulbs.

Tulipa Leo Bataviae

That is also the reason why you do not see tulips, daffodils and other spring flowering bulbs growing in the gardens in the flower-rich countries around the equator, it is always summer there.

Tulipa Hugs and Kisses

Enough playing 'the schoolmaster', now the hat of the hard businessman goes on for a while. There are still bulbs in the shed that deserve a nice garden. Buy bulbs!

Well, that's over, now back to the order of the day and writing nicely about all the beautiful things that can still be found in our webshop. I think it is also completely unnecessary for me to behave commercially and pushy towards you as a loyal newsletter reader. I think you are all flower bulb lovers and you all buy a bulb from us now and then. So I would rather write something nice than try to sell you something.

Tulipa Peggy Wonder

Writing is actually one of the most fun things to do. There are now 20,000 flower bulb enthusiasts who receive the newsletter every week and it gives me great pleasure that so many people want to read what I have to say, that makes writing extra fun. I think this number is already enormous, the entire AZ stadium is packed with people who all read my newsletter. But secretly I dream of the Feyenoord stadium, wouldn't it be fantastic if a sold-out Kuip reads the newsletter.

Tulipa Grand Perfection

So may I ask you something, would you like to help me get more readers of the Fluwel newsletter? If you have a good friend who also likes gardening, would you like to forward him or her one of our newsletters? Who knows, it might be liked and we might get more readers that way. On to a full Kuip.

Tulipa Finola in the Keukenhof

Now I sound a bit like a pastor trying to win souls for his church, and to be honest, that is true. The silent hope is of course that these new readers will also order a bun from os every now and then.

I digress again, I was going to tell you something nice about flower bulbs. In the photo above two of my favourite small flower bulbs; Narcis Say Cheese and the Scilla siberica . Planted together, in a pot or in the border they really bring out the best in each other. I am usually guilty of it myself, but in a pot or in a tuft in the garden it is not always necessary to have flower bulbs of the same species. When you are going to plant you can safely let different species sleep together. Especially pots with larger flower bulbs become much more exciting if you plant a few Crocuses, Anemones, Chionodoxa Blue Grape or Scilla. They often wake up much happier after their winter sleep than if they had slept alone. Try it both in the garden and in the pots, it never disappoints.
But I'm going to stop for this week, enough chatter. Feel free to take another look in our candy store, there's still plenty of goodies. I'll be back next week.

Kind regards.

Carlos van der Veek

Mother Nature shows us, now the tulips can go into the ground.