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Luc,I enjoy to see all those lovely wee beauties in your rock garden. Compared to my garden you can be very happy with the view frost damages, I lost tulip colonies this winter Never had this before.
I think the problems with the tulips last Winter were because of the extremely warm and wet Autumn and January which made that plants were much more advanced than in a "normal" season. At the end of January, leaves were out and even some flower buds were showing.... and then.... early February came the big freeze with temperatures going down to -10 or even -20° C in some areas which must have been very harmful, if not lethal to some plants...
You perfectly noted - minus 50 C plus snow cover. Just snow cover protects bulbs from frost. We here have wet winters every year and it is not so dangerous as just black frost and especially sudden black frost aftyer warm first half of winter as it was this season. I lost many crocuses even in greenhouse but no one outside, where was snow cover.Janis
Janis - As you say nothing is better than snowcover. Problem here is when we order it the shipment is always late. johnw
Tulip bulbs you can keep at zero to minus 10 C without problems till spring and plant just as soil defreeze - as early as possible in spring. I experimented in my young years. I planted 50 bulbs of some cultivar ('Parade') in normal time at end of September and 50 left in unheated summerhouse where temperature inside dropped to minus 20 C. Those I planted in early Aprill, just as soil thaw. Both grew and bloomed, only spring plantings was around 7-10 cm shorter and bloomed a week latyer than those planted in autumn. Bulb crop was identical in both variants.Janis
Sometimes in center is formed small replacement bulbs. Janis
some flowering tulips...