Tulip Bulbs

What tulip bulbs are, and what you're buying

A tulip bulb is a dry, papery, pointed bulb that needs a long cold spell underground before it can flower. You plant it in fall, it grows roots and waits out the winter, and it blooms in spring. NC State Extension says most spring bulbs need 12 to 16 weeks of chilling to flower.

When you buy tulip bulbs, you're really buying four things: a variety, a pack size, a bulb size and a fit with your climate. The table above shows them as each seller lists them, fewest bulbs per pack first. A dash means the listing doesn't say.

Everything on this page is a fall-planted garden tulip unless the listing says otherwise. A few listings say pre-chilled, which matters if your winters are mild, and a few mention indoor forcing, which means growing them in pots indoors after a cold spell.

What to look at on a tulip bulb listing

Six lines decide most of it.

Hardiness zones: read this before the color

Here's my one opinion on this page: read the zone range before you fall for the color. The zone range tells you whether your winter can chill the bulb and whether it has any chance of coming back.

The listings here state ranges such as 3 to 7, 3 to 8 and 3 to 9, and one Daylily Nursery listing gives 2 to 8. Your zone comes from the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map by ZIP code. If your zone sits at the warm end of a range, or past it, plan on one spring of flowers.

That's not a guess on my part. Clemson's Home & Garden Information Center says tulips can usually be counted on for a single season in South Carolina, and NC State Extension's Wayne County office says the same for eastern North Carolina, where the soil stays too warm for tulips to come back year after year. In the Piedmont, we land somewhere in between, and I've stopped taking it personally.

Bloom time

Listings that give a bloom time say early, mid or late spring, or mid to late spring. Mixing bloom times stretches the show. An early tulip and a late tulip planted side by side can give you weeks of color instead of one good weekend.

Clemson notes that Darwin hybrid tulips flower in mid-spring. Single late tulips, which Clemson calls among the best for warm climates, come at the end of the season.

Height

Stated heights on this page include 16 inches on Holland Bulb Farms Wedding Gift and Miranda, 18 to 24 inches on many others, and 30 inches on Breck's Queen of the Night. Short tulips go in front, tall ones at the back. That's the whole rule, and it took me two springs of hidden short tulips to learn it.

Bulb size

Some sellers list bulb size in centimeters, measured around the bulb. On this page you'll see 10/11 cm, 11/12 cm and 12+ cm. Iowa State University Extension says larger bulbs produce a better flower display, though smaller ones will bloom too. When two listings are otherwise alike, the bigger stated size is the better buy.

Pack size

The table sorts by this. Packs here include 5, 10, 12, 14 and 20 bulbs, and the full table runs larger. Bulk tulip bulbs make sense for a long border. Ten tulips planted in a tight group look like a planting. Ten spread down a walk look like they got lost.

Dell's take, when I mentioned a bag of 100: "A hundred bulbs is a hundred holes." He's not wrong. A bulb planter helps, and so does a free Saturday.

Pre-chilled, perennial, fragrant, deer resistant

A few listings add claims. Daylily Nursery lists Angelique and a parrot mix as pre-chilled, which can save you the refrigerator step where winters are mild. Some CZ Grain and Holland Bulb Farms listings say perennial. Holland Bulb Farms lists its Pretty Pastel double mix and Miranda as fragrant, and its Exotic Emperor as deer resistant.

We show these only where the listing says them, and they're the seller's words about that variety. Deer resistant is the seller's word for that variety, and NC State Extension notes that deer eat tulip flowers in general. Perennial depends on your winter, as the zone section explains.

Kinds of tulips you'll see on listings

Tulip names can read like a card catalog with no cross-references. A few groups come up again and again.

• Triumph tulips: classic cup-shaped tulips on sturdy stems; Holland Bulb Farms sells mixed triumph value bags of 14
• Darwin hybrid tulips: tall, with big blooms in mid-spring, per Clemson
• Single late tulips: long stems, deep cups, late in the season; Clemson counts the old Darwin and cottage tulips here
• Double and peony tulips: extra layers of petals that make the flower look like a small peony
• Parrot tulips: ruffled, feathered, sometimes streaked petals
• Fringed tulips: petal edges cut into a fine fringe
• Species tulips: smaller, wilder tulips that NC State says often do better than hybrids as perennials

Double tulip bulbs and peony tulip bulbs

Double and peony-flowered tulips are the same idea: more petals. On this page, Holland Bulb Farms lists Double Focus and a Pretty Pastel double mix. Full blooms are heavy, so plant them where a spring storm won't flatten them all at once.

Parrot tulip bulbs

Parrot tulips look like they were caught in a gust of wind and decided to stay that way. CZ Grain lists Black Parrot and a rainbow parrot mix. Daylily Nursery lists parrot mixes, one of them pre-chilled.

Black tulip bulbs and Queen of the Night

Black tulip bulbs are the darkest varieties a seller offers, so read the color words on the listing as well as the name. Breck's lists Queen of the Night at 30 inches, in zones 3 to 8, blooming mid to late spring. CZ Grain lists Black Parrot. Plant dark tulips in front of something pale, or they disappear into the shade of the bed. (Queen of the Night is also the most dramatic name in this catalog. I'd shelve it under fiction.)

White and yellow tulip bulbs

White is easy to find: CZ Grain lists a pack of 10 white tulips. For yellow, read the variety description, since many yellow tulips come in mixes. If you want one color, read the variety name rather than the photo. A mix photographed in one color is still a mix.

Perennial tulip bulbs

NC State Extension says tulip performance usually declines from the second year, and that species tulips often do better as perennials than hybrids. Clemson says that in South Carolina tulips are usually a one-season flower. If you want tulips to come back, choose varieties the seller calls perennial, check that your zone sits well inside the listed range, and plant at the full depth the extension services give. In a warm-winter yard, plan on replanting, and enjoy the excuse.

Where to buy tulip bulbs, and when to order

Tulip bulbs for sale show up from late summer, at nurseries, garden centers, bulb companies and online. This page sticks to Amazon US listings from bulb sellers such as Breck's, CZ Grain, Daylily Nursery, Eden Brothers, Holland Bulb Farms and Van Zyverden. The brand list below the table links to each one we cover.

The best place to buy tulip bulbs online is one whose listing states the variety, the zone range and the bulb size or count. Ordering tulip bulbs is mostly a timing question. Iowa State says bulbs are on sale from late August. Clemson's advice is to buy while supplies are good, in September or October, and to choose firm bulbs without mold or bruising.

Order so the bulbs arrive a little before your planting window, not months before it. Bulbs are alive. They don't improve on a garage shelf.

How to store tulip bulbs until planting

If the bulbs arrive before the soil is ready, store them properly.

• Cool: below 60°F, per Clemson
• Ventilated: Clemson suggests ventilated packages for bulbs kept in the refrigerator
• Away from fruit: Clemson warns that ethylene gas from fruit can prevent blooming
• Not for long: Iowa State says unplanted bulbs keep for several weeks, but are likely to be dead by early spring

In mild-winter areas, Clemson suggests refrigerating tulip bulbs from purchase until planting in November to late December. Label the bag. (Our refrigerator has a well-labeled history.)

Planting tulip bulbs, in short

Plant once your soil has cooled below 60°F, which NC State says usually means November in eastern North Carolina. Iowa State and Clemson both give 6 to 8 inches deep and 4 to 6 inches apart for most garden tulips, measured from the base of the bulb. Pointed end up.

Running late? Iowa State says tulips can go in as late as December if the ground isn't frozen, with several inches of straw, pine needles or leaves on top.

NC State's plant toolbox notes that mice and voles eat tulip bulbs and squirrels may dig up new plantings. If that's your yard, pots or a covered bed are worth the trouble. The Admiral, our gray squirrel, takes a professional interest in any patch of freshly turned soil. I don't plant tulips where he can watch.

Our guides go further: when to plant tulip bulbs covers timing by area, and how to plant tulip bulbs covers the steps.

Which tulip bulbs fit which yard

A few matches from the specs in the table:

• A cold-winter border: a pack of 10 or more in your zone range, mixed bloom times
• A mild-winter yard: a listing that says pre-chilled, planted soon after it arrives
• Containers by the steps: shorter varieties, 16 to 18 inches stated
• The back of a bed: Queen of the Night or another tall variety
• A cutting garden: listings the seller says are good as cut flowers
• A first try: one pack of a single named variety, so you know what you planted

Write down what you planted and where. Next April you'll want the name, and the tag will be long gone.