County Agent News
Dan Folske
October 11, 2010

It’s time for tulips!

Tulips are special—they create a welcome burst of brilliance after the dreary winter. No other flower can match tulips for their dazzling array of colors. 

Here’s how to design a beautiful display:  Start with good quality bulbs. The bulbs should be solid, disease- free, and have their buds intact. Always remember that the bigger the bulb, the bigger the bloom. The biggest tulip bulbs will be 12+ cm in diameter (the size is often listed if you look carefully on the label). The 11/12-cm tulips are fine, but be careful with the small 10/11 cm in size. The plants will be less vigorous and may not bloom after the first spring. 

There are many types of tulips to choose from. My advice: take chances, explore, and add a new variety to your garden this fall! You will be delighted next spring with the awesome  beauty of these flowers. 

Among tulip varieties, the Emperors are brilliant and bloom early. ‘Red Emperor’ is extremely popular—it looks great in a display with golden daffodils! Kaufmanniana, Greigii, and botanical tulips have a delicate, natural beauty. Some actually look like water lilies. Others have attractive, striped foliage. The Darwin hybrids, including ‘Olympic Flame’  are among the easiest to grow. A bed of these tulips will last years longer than most other tulips. Beds of “single early”, “single late”, and “triumph” tulips often last for several years. Many other types of tulips, including the fanciful parrot, fringed, and peony types are very short lived. Some gardeners treat them like annuals. Nevertheless, I’m sure that if you saw one of these fanciful tulips, you would be fascinated with their bright colors and showy petals. Mixing early and late flowering types can provide you with an extended tulip flowering season. 

Tulips prefer a well-drained soil. Plant tulip bulbs about six inches deep. Sprinkle a fertilizer containing timed-release nitrogen over the soil surface and lightly work it in. Bonemeal is not recommended since it adds little to the soil and it attracts dogs, squirrels and mice.

Water the bulbs thoroughly to start them growing. The fertilizer you apply this fall will help develop a strong root system as well as support the blooming and ripening of the bulb in spring. After planting, sit back and wait until the snow melts. Your work this fall will be rewarded with brilliant colors next spring!

Can We Still Spray?

As you know, fall is often the best time to control perennial weeds with herbicides.  Several factors can affect the efficiency of treatment. One is fall growth. The rains this fall have encouraged growth and many of these weeds are greener now than they were throughout the summer.  I am referring to lower leaves, not upper leaves on mature seed stocks. 

Another factor which is closely related is frost. We have had an unusually warm September and many frost susceptible annuals like tomatoes are still going strong. There is frost in the forecast this week but many of the perennial weeds can tolerate substantial frost levels before stopping all growth. Here are a few examples based on observations at the Carrington Research & Extension Center: 

Yellow Toadflax (Becoming more common)             17F

Western Snowberry (buckbrush)                            17F

Perennial Sowthistle                                           <17F

Absinth Wormwood                                            <17F

Field Bindweed (creeping jenny)                          <17F

Leafy Spurge                                                     <17F

Quackgrass                                                       <17F

Dandelion                                                          <17F

Canada Thistle                                                   <17F 

This does not mean that you can effectively spray until we reach 17 degrees! Many of these weeds will sustain tissue damage to leaves at temperatures in the low to mid twenties. The key is to visually appraise the plants a day or two after a severe frost. If the leaf tissue appears healthy and the forecast does not call for even colder temps for several days I would consider herbicide treatment.