The Mystery of the Shrivelled Tulips

Last spring, my little garden plot has these lovely lovely tulips blooming in it ... this year, the tulips came up again, budded, and then shrivelled up into little dried nothings. I was really puzzled about what was going on, and had it in the back of my mind to call into CBC AM when during their regular Tuesday gardening call-in segment. Today I was listening to the gardening segment at breakfast time, and someone beat me to it!  The gardening expert suggested to the caller with shrivelled tulips of his own to mulch around the tulips a lot so that the soil holds more water, and to plant them deeper - about a foot. I guess this depth works well for the local climate. Will have to try that ...

I'm not sad about not getting the chance to call about my tulips, as I am also wondering when we should prune our hardy rose bushes and the lilac ... more questions to ask!

Comments

[Simone]

Hi Laura,
Tulips degenerate. when you buy them the bulbs are all full of nutrients, if the soil isn't super rich they loos a lot of nutrients. If you dig out the bulbs and they are all small they won't flower nicely.
Roses, should be pruned to a light bush, but you could prune them in february. Check for buds and cut everything off that isn't making buds. If they flower on this years wood you can cut as much as you want. mine loved the prune and made a lot more flowers.
Lilac flowers on last years wood, so if you want to optimize bloom you are supposed to prune right after it stopped flowering. Supposedly with lilacs you aren't supposed to cut more then a third of the branches off.

greetings Simone ( from IB)

[laura]

Cool! Thanks for the info. I have a lot of hope for lilac blossoms in 2006 :)