There are plants that can suffer from too much heat as well. Tulips is one of these plants.
If it doesn’t get cool enough for long enough in your area, your tulips won’t bloom.
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You’re ready to give up and surrender your dream of seeing a field filled with tulips.
It’s actually possible to trick your plants into thinking that they’re living in the sort of climate they prefer if your neck of the woods is too warm.
This guide is for you if your tulips are struggling or have even failed in a warm climate.
Coming up, here’s what we’ll discuss:
Tulips in USDA Hardiness Zones 8-10 must be chilled.
You may need to chill them even in Zone 7 depending on where they are planted.
For example, if you plant your tulips next to a brick or cement wall, the reflected heat will be too much for the plants, and they’ll require chilling to rebloom.
How cold should temperatures be?
Tulip bulbs begin preparing for the new year as soon as winter arrives. Bulbs go dormant earlier, rather than in winter.
During winter, when the weather is colder, the bulbs convert the starches they stored in their bulb during the growing seasons into glucose.
This glucose not only protects the bulb from frost, but also provides the nutrients it needs to produce roots, flowers and leaves in spring.
The soil surrounding the tulips must drop below 55°F for all this to happen.
There isn’t an exact time period required for the bulbs to develop enough glucose to thrive, but somewhere between 12 and 14 weeks seems to do the trick.
Any less than 12 weeks may be too short.
Tulips are adapted to cold climates in central and southwest Asia.
Tricking the Bulbs
If you live somewhere where you can’t count on the soil temperature to drop and stay below 55°F for at least 12 weeks, you can place the bulbs somewhere cool enough to trigger the process artificially.
The perfect place to store your refrigerator is in the fridge.
This process should be started about 12 weeks in advance of the winter’s mid-point.
Lots of people make the mistake of starting just as spring begins, but that would mean you’ll be putting the bulbs outside when the weather is still too warm.
The seeds will start to sprout prematurely and may even kill the first flowers that develop inside.
Don’t start chilling until after December 1st at the earliest.
And don’t just toss a bunch of tulip bulbs into a bag and stuff it in the back of the fridge. This is a sure-fire way to make your bulbs rot. Use an egg carton made of cardboard and place a bulb in each section. Use a mesh bag or a paper bag for proper airflow.
Keep bulbs away from fruits and vegetables. Keep away from produce such as Apples If you emit a large amount of ethylene gas, it can cause premature growth.
Remove the bulbs from the refrigerator after 12 weeks and check for soft spots or signs that they are rotting. Plant the healthy bulbs in the soil at a depth of six inches.
The ground might be frozen in your area at this time, and that’s okay. You’ll just have to break out the chisel or put your back into it with a shovel. You can also pre-dig holes earlier in the season.
You don’t want the bulbs to warm back up until they normally would in the spring, so don’t remove them from the fridge, get distracted, and leave them on your counter for a few days. You should plant the bulbs as soon as possible.
How to Grow
Once they’re in the ground, it’s easy to forget about them. They will only start to show their leaves in spring.
There is one exception to this: If you have an extended warm period with temperatures above 55°F for several weeks on the horizon, you’ll need to dig the tulip bulbs back up, put them in some potting soil in pots, and stick them back in the fridge.
The plant needs cool weather while they’re in the soil in late winter and early spring to develop strong roots. If it gets too warm, they won’t be able to develop, or they will be weak.
There is, however, a way around the digging up of bulbs during warm weather.
If the daytime high temperature is hovering right around 60°F and not warmer, you can usually get away with covering the soil with a few inches of mulch rather than moving them to pots in the fridge.
If it’s dry in your neck of the woods during the winter, make sure to keep the soil moist but not wet.
The bad news about this method is that you’ll have to dig up the tulip bulbs every year and repeat the process, or just expect them to grow as annuals that must be replaced.
If you want to dig the bulbs up and regrow them, you’ll need to wait for the flowers and leaves to fade. Dig up the bulbs and store them in dark, cool places like a fridge or cellar.
After the 12th week, you can put them back in the fridge at the time that is right for late fall.
Even if you go through all this work, there’s no guarantee that your plants will bloom the second year. Artificially cooled bulbs just sometimes don’t work.
If you don’t want to dig up the bulbs and replant them, you can leave the bulbs in the container that you chilled them in.
Bring the pots back inside after the leaves have faded. This method can be used for many years.
Pre-Chilled Bulb Tulips
Also, you can purchase bulbs that are already chilled. You can also purchase bulbs that have been chilled for you.
They must be planted as soon as you receive them. As with those that you chill yourself, you can’t allow them to warm up before planting.
Choose the Best Hybrids & Species
Do you want to skip some steps? In fact, there are a few tulips which thrive in Zone 8, and even 9.
‘Little Beauty’ is a hybrid that will bloom even if you don’t chill it. Tulipa clusianaThe cultivars of, or lady-tulip do very well in the absence of a chill.
The following options do require a chill, but they do extremely well when grown this way and might even give you a second year of flowers even if you don’t dig them up and chill them again in advance of the next year.
‘Makeup’ has pure white petals edged in red. ‘Hocus Pocus’ has magical yellow blossoms with pink tips.
‘Queen of the Night’
‘Queen of the Night’ has nearly black, purplish petals atop 22-inch stems. This option has 22-inch stems. Eden Brothers offers a wide range of products Quantities of 10, 20, 50 and 100.
Striking ‘Apeldoorn’ features pinkish-red petals edged in apricot.
‘Pink Impression’ is, unsurprisingly, pink, and ‘White Triumphator’ is white. For lemon yellow flowers edged in red, grab ‘Akebono.’
Darwin hybrids adapt well to warm climates.
Pre-Chilled ‘Pink Passion’
Or have someone else do the work for you and grab ‘Pink Passion’ pre-chilled bulbs in a pretty pink hue at Walmart.
Some Don’t Like It Hot
Like all plants, tulips evolved to thrive in certain climate conditions, and they simply won’t be happy in anything else.
But if you can trick them into thinking they’re in the type of environment they prefer, you can enjoy these classic flowers even outside of their normal temperature range.
Warm weather is now within reach Tulipa What types of plants will you grow in your garden? What part of the country do you reside in?
Share your ideas in the comments with other gardeners.
And if you’d like to learn more about Growing colorful and fascinating tulips in your own homeNext, you can check out our guides.