Tulips Not Forever

I am a believer in tulips and their everlasting quality. That is to say, I believe you plant them and then year in and year out, they come back as tulips. They are perennials in the same way that gladioli are perennials. In other gardens in other places, that was my experience. Which is to say, in Idaho that was my experience. Here in the northwest, not so much.

I have come, over the past 16 years, to understand that if I want five dozen tulips blooming in my spring garden, then in October I will have to plant five dozen tulip bulbs, regardless of how many I planted last year. And the same for daffodils. If I plant five dozen tulip bulbs and 2 dozen daffodil bulbs in October, the following spring will provide 5 ½ dozen tulips and 2 ½ dozen daffodils. Some of the bulbs give a second year; sometimes, even a third year. I have had two of eight species tulips show up for at least three years. Maybe next year will be a record fourth year for at least one of the two. But for the most part, the tulips and daffodils are all—regardless of the label that talks cheerily about their naturalizing qualities—annuals.

I have read about this problem and been told that it is necessary to feed them during their blooming season. Some gardeners say they are to be fed just after they bloom, others want me to do it while they are blooming. It doesn’t seem to make much difference. I have come to believe—and this is a belief, not a scientific or any other kind of fact, as far as I know—that the ground I put them in is just too wet too much of the year and they succumb to water before they get a second chance to bloom. I know I could get round this if I put them in large pots and all that, but that’s how you grow tulips in California: you spend about six weeks with your refrigerator crisper filled with tulip and daffodil bulbs and then you send the bulbs to school in large pots in dark places and then in light places and then outdoors and finally, Hosanna!, they are risen and blooming.

I get my bulbs from Skagit County, the home of The Tulip Festival. When we arrived back in Washington this week, the bulbs were sitting in a beautifully packed and ventilated box at the post office (and had been there for five days). When I order the bulbs, the company tells me that they will ship them sometime during a four week period when the weather is right for me to plant them. Tomorrow and many other tomorrows it is going to be raining, so today it was time to send the five dozen bulbs to bed, even if I had to do it in the near dark, which I did. Already, though, I'm imagining them up and providing another amazing show. Like Broadway, new shows every year.