Nothing says spring like the stunning masses of brightly colored tulips that brighten our landscape. But tulips can be a disappointment in the home garden after that first glorious year. Why does this happen and what can you do about it? Adam Dooling, director of plant collections, responds to this gardener’s question.

My tulips looked great the first spring, but there have been fewer and smaller plants every year since, and many of them have no flowers. What am I doing wrong?

To grow tulips that remain in the garden year after year, it helps to understand the plant’s life cycle. Think about where tulips originated and what they need to survive.

Tulips are native to the high altitudes of Central Asia, where they grow in well-drained, mineral-based soil without much organic matter. Most commercial tulip bulbs today are grown in the Netherlands, where tulips were introduced in the sixteenth century. The environment there is ideal for growing tulips. It’s mostly surrounded by sea, and has well-drained soil, long days, and a long growing season—all of which are conducive to forming large bulbs.

Here in the Midwest, we have soils that are sometimes wet and clay-heavy. We also have wet summers and winters and can have extreme temperatures in both seasons. Often, what kills a bulb is a combination of stressors like our wet summers and our tendency to cut back foliage too soon after the plant has bloomed.

What can I do to help my tulips thrive here?

First, select plants that perennialize easily. Tulip breeders are typically looking for the “wow” factor, not at how a new variety will perform in the landscape over the long term. It’s often a tradeoff: To get gorgeous flowers, they sacrifice vigor.

T. kaufmanniana

T. clusiana ‘Lady Jane’

'T. fosteriana’

Darwin hybrids are bred to be both resilient and pretty. They have large flowers on tall, strong stems and they come in beautiful, saturated colors. Some favorite Darwin hybrids are ‘Banja Luka’, ‘World Peace’, ‘Apricot Delight’, and ‘Ivory Floradale’.

Species tulips are less showy than hybrids, but they’re also tougher and they naturalize easily, returning reliably year after year. They include T. kaufmanniana, T. turkistania, and T. fosteriana. Some standouts: T. clusiana ‘Lady Jane’ and ‘Cynthia’ and T. acuminata, which is known for its flame-like blooms.

Second, help your tulips recover and recharge after blooming. While the tulip is growing, it’s turning the sun’s energy into carbohydrates, which are stored in the bulb. This allows the plant to survive the winter underground.

As the soil starts to absorb water and warm up, it wakes the bulb. The plant spends all of its energy putting up leaves and producing a bloom. Then it needs to photosynthesize in order to make and store carbohydrates to do it all again next spring.

It can’t do that if you cut the foliage back too soon. Resist that urge! Instead, pair your tulips with plants that will hide those fading leaves as they die back naturally. 
Earlier tulips pair well with cool-season annuals like violets, pansies, bronze fennel, alyssum, snapdragon, and even lettuce. For later tulips, rely on summer perennials that emerge just as they’re needed for camouflage.

In the summer, plants growing around the bulbs take up water, improving drainage. That’s important because the bulb doesn’t like a lot of moisture while dormant.

What about fertilizing?

If you have good garden soil, there should be enough nutrients for the bulbs without additional fertilizer.

Is there anything I can do to prolong this year’s blooms?

Yes and no. You can’t do anything to make an individual tulip bloom longer. Once it’s above ground, you can’t change the ambient temperature. You can’t do anything about those freak 90-degree-Fahrenheit days. And you can’t get a tulip to rebloom by deadheading it. The bulb doesn’t have enough energy to bloom a second time.

But you can extend the bloom time of a group of tulips with a little trick in the fall. Plant most of the bulbs normally, with the tips straight up. Plant the rest tilted to the side to various degrees. Those will take a little longer to come up and will bloom a little later, so overall the display lasts longer. But this will only work the first year—after that the bulbs will right themselves. You can also create a longer-lasting show through succession planting—planting multiple varieties of tulips (or other spring bulbs) so that their bloom times are staggered.