Lots of tulips are very short-lived. If you want them to come back year after year, you need to be buy those sold as "perennial" or "species" tulips. They usually have smaller and less showy flowers, but I think they're much better value.
Buying them from good dealers helps too...planted over 200 from Peter Nyssen last autumn and they were amazing. Planting them deep enough is also important. Now, let's see how they repeat next year. Time will tell.
Most modern tulip cultivars bloom well for 3 to 5 years. Tulip bulbs decline in vigor rather quickly. Weak bulbs produce large, floppy leaves, but no flowers.
To maximize the number of years tulips are in bloom, choose planting sites that receive at least 6 hours of direct sun per day and have well-drained soils. Promptly remove spent flowers after the tulips are done blooming. Seed pod formation deprives the bulbs of much of the food manufactured by the plant’s foliage. Lastly, allow the tulip foliage to die back naturally before removing it.
Dig up tulips that are no longer blooming and discard the bulbs. (Small, weak tulip bulbs will likely never bloom again.) Plant new tulip bulbs in the fall.
eddie3
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