Tulipa 2009

[Paul T]

Luc,

Losing this one was a surprise to me as well.  It had done well in a small pot for a couple of years (it is a tiny little thing only a few inches high and intense orangey-red, with thin, rippled leaves) but I put it into a massive tub in the back yard to give it some root room and space to drop it's bulbs further if needed.  This year, nothing came up at all.  I guess it wasn't hot enough for it in the tub as it insulated it?  I really don't know.  The Crocus, Iris retics and other things in there all did fine, just not it.    The problem with planting it into my crocus garden (which is definitely already full) is that everything in there is in a basket, and I am not sure how the tulip species would cope with that given they are prone to producing droppers etc and sending themselves down deeper.  Would a basket complicate things?  I know in pots they just end up sitting their bulbs on the bottom of the pot, but I am unsure what a basket would do to them?

[Maggi Young]

Thanks Fermi & Pat I shall have a great time delving into the Tulip world in the SH - awful weather here....

Was wondering if anyone grows T sprengeri as I was given 3 precious bulbs by Tonyg and hope to give them the best possible chance to multiply 

 Robin, search the Forum for a post about Tulipa sprengeri from Roma... she grows them by the hundreds!

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Luc,

Losing this one was a surprise to me as well.  It had done well in a small pot for a couple of years (it is a tiny little thing only a few inches high and intense orangey-red, with thin, rippled leaves) but I put it into a massive tub in the back yard to give it some root room and space to drop it's bulbs further if needed.  This year, nothing came up at all.  I guess it wasn't hot enough for it in the tub as it insulated it?  I really don't know.  The Crocus, Iris retics and other things in there all did fine, just not it.    The problem with planting it into my crocus garden (which is definitely already full) is that everything in there is in a basket, and I am not sure how the tulip species would cope with that given they are prone to producing droppers etc and sending themselves down deeper.  Would a basket complicate things?  I know in pots they just end up sitting their bulbs on the bottom of the pot, but I am unsure what a basket would do to them?

Hi Paul !
As we are not used to warm dry summers out here, I grow some of my species Tulips in baskets so I can lift them easily after flowering and give them a warm dry rest in the garden shed.  They adore this treatment out here - I just have to make sure that the baskets are deep enough to avoid the problems you mention.  I find it a quite practicle way to grow them.  Another advantage is that I can plunge my pots of Rhodohypoxis in the holes when I lift the Tulip baskets in Spring, so I have flowers twice in the same spot... 
Always struggling for space.. 

[Onion]

Luc,

The problem with planting it into my crocus garden (which is definitely already full) is that everything in there is in a basket, and I am not sure how the tulip species would cope with that given they are prone to producing droppers etc and sending themselves down deeper.  Would a basket complicate things?  I know in pots they just end up sitting their bulbs on the bottom of the pot, but I am unsure what a basket would do to them?

Paul,
they grow through the holes of the basket to go deeper. And they do this very fast. They only need one growing season and you find "daughter-plants" 30 centimeter/1 feet under the old pot. Mostly species increased by stolones.

[Gerry Webster]

Luc,

The problem with planting it into my crocus garden (which is definitely already full) is that everything in there is in a basket, and I am not sure how the tulip species would cope with that given they are prone to producing droppers etc and sending themselves down deeper.  Would a basket complicate things?  I know in pots they just end up sitting their bulbs on the bottom of the pot, but I am unsure what a basket would do to them?

Paul,
they grow through the holes of the basket to go deeper. And they do this very fast. They only need one growing season and you find "daughter-plants" 30 centimeter/1 feet under the old pot. Mostly species increased by stolones.

This is also my experience - they get everywhere.

[Ragged Robin]

Robin, search the Forum for a post about Tulipa sprengeri from Roma... she grows them by the hundreds!

Thanks for the lead Maggi, Roma's T sprengeri looks fantastic in drifts under the trees in dappled sunlight - my 3 small bulbs will take a few years to put on a display like that!

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Luc,

The problem with planting it into my crocus garden (which is definitely already full) is that everything in there is in a basket, and I am not sure how the tulip species would cope with that given they are prone to producing droppers etc and sending themselves down deeper.  Would a basket complicate things?  I know in pots they just end up sitting their bulbs on the bottom of the pot, but I am unsure what a basket would do to them?

Paul,
they grow through the holes of the basket to go deeper. And they do this very fast. They only need one growing season and you find "daughter-plants" 30 centimeter/1 feet under the old pot. Mostly species increased by stolones.

This is also my experience - they get everywhere.

I suppose it's because I lift them every season they don't have time to cause me this problem... 

[Lesley Cox]

My Tulipa linifolia didn't come up this year either. Don't know why. They'd been fine in their raised bed for about 8 years. On the other hand, batalinii x maximowiczii have thrived and multiplied in the same bed. But linifolia has always been very special to me because of the Greenwood painting.

[Paul T]

Uli and Gerry,

The "escaping" was my concern, and the reason I haven't planted them in the baskets in the crocus garden.

Luc,

No idea why they aren't escaping from yours...... Tulips make their droppers in one season, so the fact you lift yours shouldn't make any real difference.  I at one stage had a pot of one of the species sitting on a bench in my shadehouse..... there were droppers sitting in mid air 6 inches below the bottom of the pot.  Pterostylis orchids are doing the same here at the moment, with a couple of them having more than 6 inch shoots straight down out the bottom of the pot, which I think will become tubers if they get the opportunity.  I don't think they'll do it in mid air, but I think if they managed to encounter a pot they'd grow very happily. 

[Luc Gilgemyn]

Paul,
Another reason may be that the mesh of the baskets I'm using is quite fine, approx. 1 mm openings... 

[Paul T]

Luc,

That would definitely make it more difficult for them to put their droppers through. 

[Maggi Young]

Luc,

That would definitely make it more difficult for them to put their droppers through. 

 Though that desn't stop Scolipus bigelowii or some Erythronioums from making good their escape from such pots! 

[Paul T]

1mm mesh is still large enough for them to get through?    I didn't realise that Scoliopis bigelowei was stoloniferous?  Does that mean it can be grown from root cuttings etc?

[Maggi Young]

Paul, these plants will also burrow out of fishbox troughs via the base or sides! Houdini has nothing on 'em ! Alstromeria are escapologists, too. Never actually "tried" to propagate them from root cuttings as such, though 

[Lesley Cox]

I wish my scoliopus would grow like that Maggi. It has remained a tight, non-moving clump for its whole 12-15 years. I often pick erythronium bulbs from the gravel under their pots though and some alstroemerias can be viscious.