All about flowers and gifts

All spring-flowering bulbs must be planted in fall from September to December depending on your climate. Now is time to bulbs while the selection is best. You can store them for another month in a cool, not cold, dark place.

It is important to choose right site for planting tulips. Most bulbs need abundance sunshine to bloom well next spring and to store up the energy required to flower in future springs. All bulbs need good drainage; never plant bulbs where water collects.

There are two principal ways of planting tulips bulbs. You can set the bulbs in the bed or individually.

Tulips bulbs need plentiful moisture from fall, when they make new roots, until they finish flowering in spring. If the soil is dry at planting time, water thoroughly after planting. Stop watering after the bulbs bloom.

Most bulbs are not heavy feeders. You can generally do without fertilizer entirely if you mulch your bulbs annually with 2-3 inches of an organic material such as compost, shredded bark (not pine bark) or shredded leaves.

Some tulips are willing to bloom well for more than one spring.

The best known of these so-called perennial tulips are the Darwin Hybrids. This group includes such well-known varieties as Apeldoorn, Oxford and Pink Impression. All make big bulbs and big flowers in bold colors. They bloom in the middle of the spring bulb season. Also well knowing are Fosteriana tulips, which include the Emperor series (Red, White, Yellow and Orange). These tulips are more compact and earlier to bloom than the Darwin Hybrids, but their vase-shaped flowers are large and very showy.

Very interesting wxclusive sort is Blueberry Ripple Triumph.

Further down the list are the Greigii and Kaufmanniana tulips, which are generally shorter and earlier than the Darwin Hybrids and Fosterianas and often have attractively spotted leaves.

To produce large, flowering-size bulbs, growers in Holland remove the flowers within a few days after they open.

Compared to other leisure activities, planting tulips is less expensive, takes less time, is longer lasting and more beautiful.