Tulips In Tiny Spaces: The Ultimate Guide to Growing Tulips
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Introduction:
Tulips are one of the most popular spring flowers in the world, and for good reason. As of the time of this writing, over 3000 registered varieties of tulips exist. Insanity, because I bet you’re only familiar with the traditional red and yellow tulips you’ve seen in your grandma’s landscaping. You can grow tulips too!
Yes, you can learn how to grow tulips in small spaces.
I know, those tulip bunches wrapped in kraft paper are SO eye-catching at the farmers markets but there’s no way you have the money, space or time to grow them. It feels like something you only see on social media, and it probably feels impossible.
Have you ever gone down the rabbit hole of #tulipmania or #tulipseason on Instagram? Gorgeous way to change up your algorithm, btw. Read on, because I’m going to show you.
I started growing tulips for myself after a similar deep dive.
Everything I do is on a budget at home, and I have become so enamored with flowers I’m determined to get everyone else growing more.
Let me show you how you can grow an armload of “OMG I didn’t know you grew flowers like THAT!” tulips in a container, a tiny townhouse yard, or an apartment deck.
I promise, this isn’t going to be that $555 vegetable garden you tried a few years ago. I take multiple budgets in mind, because affordability is relative to everyone, and flowers can be affordable on every budget.
Let’s grow more flowers!
Table of Contents
Introduction
How to Prepare
Where to Plant
How to Plant
How to Care
How to Harvest
How to Enjoy
Summary: TL;DR
1. How to Prepare
Tulips require approximately 12-16 weeks of temperatures around 40 degrees Fahrenheit to reach their “cold quota”. Zones 7 and above are likely to hit this requirement outdoors naturally. Zones 8 and warmer may need to chill tulip bulbs in a refrigerator (away from ethylene creating produce!) for that period to trick the bulbs into thinking they’ve reached their quota. Pop over to figure out your gardening zone!
If you are a cut flower tulip diehard like I am, you already know your tulips will give you an incredible display in a vase
Pro tip: If you don’t own a vase yet, check out some favorites here or hop over to Facebook and search for a “Buy Nothing” group local to your area. You can make a request to your community for a vase or an old mason jar! Shameless plug for keeping items local in your community and gifting and regifting things you no longer desire.
2. Where to Plant:
I’m going to talk about outdoor growing only in this guide, but I’m going to link a helpful resource for you if you’re interested in forcing tulips indoors whether in soil or hydroponically. This is a great option if you live in an apartment style setting and don’t have outdoor growing capabilities right now. Although it’s a bit more technical, nothing is impossible! Growing flowers is a learning process. Check out how to set yourself up for indoor tulip bulb forcing here.
What we’ll go over is landscape or flower garden planted tulips and outdoor container planted tulips. Minimal differences between the two, and either way you’ll learn how you can grow tulips in your small space.
Outdoor Landscape Planted
Tulip bulbs are approximately 12cm in diameter, and you most likely picked up a few packs, which means you have anywhere in the range of 10 to 30 bulbs to plant. YAY! Although it sounds like a large number, you won’t need an entire workday to plant these. Promise.
Ultimately, you’ll plant your tulip bulbs to enjoy them outdoors, or you’ll plant them to pull up as cut flowers to enjoy indoors. Regardless, the life of your bloom will be close to the same so it’s YOUR choice! Deciding where you’ll enjoy your blooming tulips determines how we plant them, but not where we plant them.
Container Garden Planted
Yes, you can plant tulips in a pot. Lowes does it every year and marks them up about 1000%. If Lowes can do it, so can you! The only difference in supplies is that you need the actual pot and you probably need to buy the soil and the compost. Why would anyone need to put their bulbs in a pot?
Not everyone has outdoor gardening space!
You’ll want a container that’s at least 12 inches deep with drainage holes at the bottom, and soil to fill it. My favorite potting soil is Pro-Mix brand, because it’s most budget friendly and widely available. No, I’m not a fan of the plastic packaging but I don’t always have alternative options and I know it’s available to most folks at big box stores.
3. How to Plant
Flower farmers employ what’s called “egg crate spacing” for production tulip bulbs, meaning they arrange the bulbs closely, but not touching. Once the tulips are arranged in the dirt, they look like eggs in a carton, hence the technique. The reason for this is to maximize crop production to grow more in a smaller space, which is why you’re going to incorporate this principle into your planting plans.
Select your site, you only need a hole roughly 12 inches in diameter, approximately 6 to 8 inches deep.
Dig your hole! (Pro tip: the average shovel blade is about 9 inches wide and averages about 12 inches long/deep.) Backfill in a portion of the loose soil to leave room for the roots to develop. Make your hole as flat as you can, but do not worry… this is just dirt.
Arrange your tulip bulbs in a square or circle shape, and the pointed ends should be facing the sky, like setting a chocolate candy kiss down on a table. I promise, if they’re touching, it’s not the end of the world- just nestle them gently into the dirt.
Cover your tulip bulbs with dirt, or with rich compost. Compost is an OPTIONAL step and skipping it will not ruin this entire growing process. Here are 2 inexpensive options: I’ve used this commercial brand of compost from Lowes, and this commercial brand of compost from Home Depot.
Water in your bulbs, aka pour water on top of them to encourage a little root growth! Gardening isn’t rocket science!
If you get snow throughout the winter, you’re pretty much done here. Your bulbs will receive slow hydration throughout the winter.
If you don’t get snow OR you’ve had less snow than average- when your soil becomes cracked, crumbly and dry, it is okay to water your bulbs on a winter day.
4. How to Care
You got tulip bulbs into soil! This is awesome. Next is maintenance phase.
If you’re in Zone 6 and colder and it seems like you’ll get your average winter precipitation, you can skip ahead to the part where it’s time to harvest or enjoy your tulips.
If you’re in zone 8 and warmer, OR you’re in a zone without your average winter precipitation, you just need to do a little bit of monitoring here and there until it’s tulip time.
Here's what to expect throughout winter:
Disclaimer: Your tulips might sprout on a weirdly warm sunny January day after a big snowfall has melted.
This is your reminder not to panic!
They’re not going to rot, and they’re not going to freeze. They’ll be fine. You do not need to go buy frost blankets or extra mulch or anything else internet land tells you. Tulips are not susceptible to freezing until the bloom is ready to pop open. Let the snow fall and insulate them, let Mother Nature do her thing. All that is required of you is an occasional watering if it looks like your soil is dry and cracking.
Your tulips will probably start to form buds in March-ish, and ever so slowly the buds will begin to rise towards the sky in the coming weeks. You’ll begin providing water as needed because tulips are heavy drinkers when the stems begin elongating. If the top inch of soil feels dry (roughly from your finger tip to your first knuckle!) you’ll provide them a drink of water.
Whenever you see that bud begin to swell up in size, it’s time to start tulip watch!
If you’ll be enjoying your tulips in the landscape or from their container, skip down to the enjoy your tulips step.
If you plan to harvest your tulips to enjoy indoors, let’s talk about the best way to do that to maximize your enjoyment.
Don’t forget, tulips last about the same amount of time indoors and outdoors! Your choice on how to enjoy them. Don’t forget, if you take your tulips inside or gift them to someone, they can be enjoyed far more often than outside! Having flowers in the house is magical, and part of my overall story.
Just saying. It’s okay to cut your flowers. This is an unbiased opinion, of course.
5. How to Harvest
Alright yo, you are on tulip watch now! You did it.
Tulip variety determines how to harvest, so let’s discuss:
Enjoying any tulip as a cut flower requires the same mechanism of harvest, just watching the bulbs for different stages of coloration.
All cut flower tulips get treated as annuals. This means that bulbs are treated like seeds and you will remove the whole tulip plant connected to the bulb and the roots.
How to pull tulips: Grasp the stem at dirt level with a firm hold, and remove the bulb and all. If the soil is compacted, loosen the area around with a trowel or a shovel. Trim the bulbs off for compost, or dispose into the garbage if you don’t have a composting area.
Harvest stages:
Single tulips & Parrot Tulips: “Color crack stage” When your green bud begins to show color along the cracks between the petals, this is when you’ll pull the entire plant out of the soil.
Double tulips: Petal separation is needed, meaning you’ll wait for the entire bulb to develop color and observe separation between the peony-like petals. That stage is when you’ll pull the entire plant out of the soil.
6. How to Enjoy
YOU DID IT! If your tulips are outside in your landscape or in a container, this is the easiest part.
Outdoor tulips: Take pictures! Try photographing your tulips in different lighting, often cloudy days will give you the best color interpretation. Tips from a professional floral photographer, LOL.
Leave the foliage to photosynthesize and generate energy for perennial bulbs, at bare minimum 6 weeks but ideally until it turns brown and recedes on its own.
Indoor tulips: Your fresh cut tulips should last about 10 days in a vase if you’re trimming the stems on an angle each day and providing them with fresh water. Flower food isn’t always necessary. (I don’t use it personally, but I do provide flower food with bouquets I sell)
Pull spent blooms to keep your vase looking fresh.
Summary: TL; DR
Put them in the dirt during the fall.
Watch them bloom in the spring.
Tulips remain high in my mental wellbeing toolkit for gray Pennsylvania winters, because I need to have something to anticipate when the sun doesn’t show up for weeks at a time. Seasonal depression is real, and flowers have been integrated into my overall story so that I can impact more people. I’m so excited for you to grow flowers.