How to Grow Tulips: 8 Steps to Go From Bulbs to Flowers

Tulips are a beloved spring flower, and they also happen to be one of the easiest flowering bulbs you can plant. But achieving success almost always comes down to the choices you make in the fall.

In this guide, we’ll cover the basics of growing tulips in beds, in pots, and for vases, but along the way I’ll let you in on the details most others skip, like:

• Why the pricey bulbs sometimes flop.
• What the Dutch know that keeps their fields blooming.
• Why tulips that impress in year one often disappoint in year two.
• Why gardeners with mild winters have to fool their tulips.

Plus, I’m sharing the honest answer to the question everyone asks: Will tulips come back the next year?

Step #1: How to Select Tulips

Before you buy a single bulb, you need to decide what you want your tulips to do for you. Will you use them as a border, cutting bed, or pot by the front door? This one choice affects all that follows, including where your tulips are planted, how tightly you pack them, and which types you should be shopping for.

Here’s something a lot of folks don’t realize: For most of us, a tulip is really an annual. The Dutch treat tulips that way on purpose. They lift the bulbs out of the fields every summer and start fresh the next season; they don’t expect them to return.

So, you’ll also need to decide which kind of grower you want to be. Are you planting a one-season show you’ll redo every fall, or are you hoping to encourage the same bulbs year after year?

Choosing Tulips Based on Purpose

• Borders: You plan to group tulips into blocks of one color, keeping the shorter ones up front.
• Cutting Bed: You’ll give tulips their own patch so you can cut as much as you want.
• Pots: Stick with short, one-season tulip varieties and pack them in close.
• Naturalizing: You want long-lived tulips that come back, then spread once left alone.

How to Choose Healthy Tulip Bulbs

A tulip bulb is a storage organ, and a bigger, firmer one holds more energy for a taller stem and a larger flower. This is why small, bargain-priced bulbs so often let people down.

Commercial growers grade tulips by size, measured by the bulb’s circumference in centimeters. Top hybrids are sold at 12 centimeters or more, while the cheap bulk mixes are usually undersized offsets sorted from the larger ones. That’s why a bargain bulb mix is cheaper and not a good choice.

Instead, buy from a trusted local nursery; these often stock varieties that can thrive in your local area. Remember that a bulb is alive but dormant, so how it has been stored matters.

How to Pick Good Bulbs

• Wild (Species) Size: 6 to 8 centimeters (2 to 3 inches).
• Big Hybrid Size: 12 centimeters (about 5 inches) or larger.
• Small Bulbs for Mass Plantings: 10 centimeters (4 inches) minimum.
• Sprouting: A tiny green sprout at the tip is fine. Soft, moldy, or hollow is not.
• Firmness: Give each bulb a gentle squeeze. It should feel dense, like a fresh onion.
• Condition: Check that the papery skin and flat root plate are both intact.
• Timing: Buy in late summer or early fall, then keep them cool, dark, and dry until planting.

Step #2: Understanding Bulb Types

By choosing the right variety, you can enjoy a longer season and have a better chance of growing tulip flowers that return.

Cultivated tulips are mostly grouped by flower shape and bloom time. If you plant only one group, everything blooms at once, then the show is over. Plant a mix of early, mid, and late types, and the show can last for weeks.

There are thousands of named cultivars, but the Dutch growers’ association, the KAVB, sorts them all into 15 main categories.

The big, showy hybrids are bred for a spectacular first year and make excellent cut flowers and container plants. Other groups come back looking just as good each year. The streaked Rembrandt types mimic the famously broken-color tulips of the 1600s, whose flame patterns came from a virus (though today’s are stable, virus-free lookalikes).

The Best Tulip Varieties to Look For

• For Reliable Reblooming: Darwin Hybrid and Emperor tulips.
• For Early Color: Single early and double early types.
• Cutting Gardens: Lily-flowered types like ‘White Triumphator’, Rembrandts, and Parrots.
• Dramatic Color: Near-black ‘Queen of Night’ and fringed types.
• For Low Borders: Short Greigii tulips with mottled foliage.
• Streaked Color: Rembrandt types.
• Feathered or Ruffled Blooms: Parrot tulips with fringed petals and twisted leaves.

A Safety Note for Pet Owners

Tulips are toxic to dogs, cats, and horses.

The irritating compounds, called tulipalin A and B, are most concentrated in the bulb. The ASPCA lists the plant as unsafe for pets, with signs of trouble that include drooling, vomiting, and diarrhea. If a dog digs up and eats a bulb, it can be more serious.

Additionally, handling a lot of bulbs can also irritate your skin (a reaction that’s sometimes called tulip fingers), so wear gloves if you’re planting several.

Other plants should also be kept away from pets and handled with care, which you can learn more about in our guide to aloe vera plants.

Step #3: When to Plant

Timing is extremely important for tulips. You should plant tulips in the fall, after summer heat but before the ground freezes.

Planting too early in warm soil may cause the bulbs to break dormancy early or rot. Plant in cool soil, and they’ll grow roots and be ready for spring.

Cool soil also discourages the fungus that causes bulb rot, and squirrels lose interest in digging once the ground is cold, so waiting pays off. Additionally, tulips handle late planting better than most bulbs, so don’t rush them into warm ground.

In the North, winter provides the long cold spell tulips need to flower. In the South, the mild winters just aren’t cold enough for long enough, so gardeners need to supply that cold themselves. That’s why tulip advice varies so much from one region to the next, and why a bulb that skips its cold period won’t bloom well.

A soil thermometer, or your local area’s temperature history (which can be gleaned from your local extension office), is a better planting guide than the dates printed on bags shipped nationwide.

Tulip Planting Time by Region

• North, Zones 3 to 5: Plant in mid-September to mid-October, at least 6 to 8 weeks before the ground freezes.
• Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest, Zones 5 to 7: Plant in mid-September through November, once soil at 6 inches drops below 55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Transitional and Upper South, Zones 6 to 7b: Plant in October through December; mid-January is still workable.
• Warm South, Zones 8 to 10: Plant in November to late December using pre-chilled bulbs.

Should You Pre-Chill Your Tulips?

If winters in your region are mild, you’ll need to chill your tulip bulbs before planting. Here’s how to do it:

1. Put the dry bulbs in a paper bag and refrigerate for about 12 to 16 weeks.
2. Plant them immediately after they come out of the cold.
3. Keep them away from apples and other ripening fruit; the ethylene gas fruit gives off can kill the flower forming inside the bulb.

A longer chill tends to lead a tulip to grow a taller stem, but there is a limit. Expose them to too much cold, and the stems can come up tall but weak. They could collapse under the flower.

Step #4: Choosing The Location

As you consider different planting spots for your tulips, know this: Bulbs need a little moisture, but they can’t sit in soggy soil, especially through winter when they’re dormant.

Wet roots in cold ground turn a healthy bulb to mush, so drainage is key to keeping your bulb healthy.

Set Light and Soil Up for Success

Tulips want a bright, sunny spot. That’s what builds strong stems and brings out rich flower color. In hot climates, morning sun with light afternoon shade helps the blooms last longer.

When it comes to soil, tulips aren’t heavy feeders, so soil nutrients don’t make much difference the first year. Instead, they need soil loose enough for drainage and root growth, but not so loose that it dries out too quickly. Adding compost helps balance the soil, loosening heavy clay and helping sandy soil hold moisture more evenly.

5 Steps to Choosing the Right Spot

1. Choose a location that gets at least 6 hours of full sun daily.
2. Do a drainage test. If water still stands 30 minutes after rain, improve the soil with large bark pieces or coarse sand before planting.
3. Add compost to improve structure and aim for a pH between 6.0 and 7.0.
4. If needed, amend soil with sulfur to lower pH or lime to raise pH.
5. If soil still drains poorly, plant in a raised bed or a container instead.

For a similar plant you can grow in full sun, learn how to grow chrysanthemums in this guide.

Step #5: Planting Guidelines

To set your tulips up for success, you need to get the planting depth right.

Soil anchors the plant and insulates it from temperature swings. If you plant too shallow, your bulbs will be exposed to more cold and to the freeze-and-thaw cycles that push them out of the ground. In cold regions, planting a little deeper adds extra protection.

Bulb orientation matters, too. The pointed end is where the shoot emerges, so that end should sit upright. A stem will sometimes right itself if you get it wrong, but it may lose height and waste energy.

Bulbs are also slightly flat on one side. Face that side outward along a border for an even front edge.

Spacing depends on the look you want. For a natural drift, give bulbs more space. For a full, bouquet-style pot or flower bed, you can set bulbs very close, as long as they don’t actually touch.

5-Step Tulip Planting Protocol

1. Dig about 2.5 to 3 times the bulb’s height. Large hybrids should sit 6 to 8 inches deep, and species tulips sit 3 to 5 inches deep.
2. Set each bulb with the pointed end up and the flat root plate down.
3. Space bulbs 4 to 6 inches apart for a natural look, or up to 8 inches apart if you want them to multiply and establish.
4. For a dense, bouquet-style display, set bulbs nearly touching.
5. After filling in with soil, water gently to firm the soil around bulbs.

Expert Tip: Ignore advice to plant bulbs in egg cartons. This can stunt roots and plants and encourage rot.

Step #6: Growing in Containers

The rules for planting are different when you’re growing tulips in containers. Potting mix warms, cools, and dries out faster than soil in the ground, and bulbs are more exposed. Blocked drainage is the most common cause of potted bulbs being lost over winter.

Container planting is a one-season show, so planting doesn’t have to be as exact as it does when planting in soil. Bulbs can be planted more shallowly and closer together. This creates the full look people want from spring pots.

When planting, just make sure to leave soil between the outer bulbs and the container walls to insulate them from cold air coming through the sides.

Planting in Containers: 7 Steps

1. Make sure your pot has at least one drainage hole.
2. Cover the large drainage holes with curved pieces of a broken pot or some large gravel to keep soil in while allowing for drainage.
3. Fill the pot with a free-draining potting mix that stays moist but not wet.
4. Set the bulbs close together with their points facing up, then cover them with 1 to 2 inches of mix.
5. Make sure bulbs are completely covered with soil. You shouldn’t see the tips of the bulbs; exposed tips can dry out.
6. Gently water in to settle the soil.
7. If squirrels or neighborhood cats are a problem, lay chicken wire over the pot after planting. Remove it when shoots appear.

Layer Bulbs for a Fuller Pot

To pack even more tulip flowers into one container, plant in layers, a technique that’s sometimes called the lasagna planting method.

Set the taller varieties on a lower layer of mix, cover them, then add the shorter varieties on top and cover again. The bulbs will be crowded, but the bottom shoots will find space to come up and give you a full, layered pot of flowers.

Step #7: Essential Tulip Care

Once your bulbs are planted, the biggest risk is overdoing it. Too much water or fertilizer causes more harm than holding back.

Know How Much Water Tulips Need

Water well after planting to signal the bulbs to start rooting. After that, tulips in the ground will probably get enough water from rainfall. Water only during a dry spell.

Established tulips sitting in water can rot quickly, so it’s better to hold back on watering.

Container tulips are the exception, since potting mix dries faster. Check below the soil surface, and water when the mix is drying and the pot feels light, but don’t let it dry out completely. Water that pools on top or sits in a saucer without being wicked back up into the pot is a sign that it’s too wet.

Add Fertilizer Sparingly

Fresh tulip bulbs already contain the food necessary for their first flower, so feeding with fertilizer at planting is unnecessary.

If you’re hoping to keep bulbs for future years, start with a soil test instead. Many soils already have plenty of phosphorus, which feeds flower production. If the test shows you need more phosphorus, feed lightly with a balanced fertilizer as the shoots emerge in spring.

Bone meal can help, since it adds phosphorus and calcium to support strong roots and blooms. Use it sparingly, though, because its scent draws digging animals like dogs, skunks, and squirrels to your bulbs.

If you treat your tulips as annuals and replace them each fall, you can skip feeding altogether.

Watch for Tulip Fire

Tulips can develop a fungus called tulip fire (Botrytis tulipae). It shows up as scorched, twisted new growth and brown or gray spots on leaves and petals. It spreads fast in cool, wet springs. Crowded, poorly drained beds and constantly wet foliage are what let it take hold.

If you spot signs of tulip fire:

1. Remove and destroy any spotted or distorted growth immediately; do not compost it.
2. Water at the base, not overhead, and space plants so the leaves dry quickly.
3. Don’t replant tulips in the same spot for 2 to 3 years, since the fungus stays in the soil.

Learn how to look for pests on other flowering plants in our guide to hydrangeas here.

Step #8: Encourage Repeat Blooms

After your new bulb flowers, it has to rebuild that energy through its leaves before going dormant. If you cut the leaves off too soon, the bulb won’t receive enough energy to recharge. This is the main reason tulips don’t come back each year.

Even when done right, getting tulips to return depends on where you live. In USDA Zones 3 through 7, winter is long and cold enough to give bulbs the 12 to 16 weeks near 35 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit they need to create a flower.

In zones 8 to 10, the soil never cools enough to reset the bulb. Gardeners there either treat tulips as one-season plants or dig them up after they die down and store them.

Even where the cold is enough for bulbs to recharge each year, the showy hybrid varieties start to fade by the second spring. Most stop blooming by 3 or 4 years.

The reason is that the original bulb splits after it blooms into several smaller offset bulbs. Each one is usually too small to bloom until it has spent another season or growing and storing energy. They still send up leaves, so the planting slowly thins into mostly foliage.

5 Steps to Give Tulips the Best Chance of Returning

1. Remove faded flowers so the plant doesn’t waste energy making seed.
2. Leave the foliage in place for at least 6 weeks after bloom or until most leaves have turned yellow.
3. Plant varieties such as Darwin Hybrids, Emperor tulips, and wild species like Tulipa clusiana and Tulipa humilis.
4. Keep deer and rabbits from eating the foliage after flowering.
5. Add in some new bulbs each fall wherever you want a guaranteed full display.

Cutting For Vases

The secret to long-lasting cut tulips is to cut them when they are buds. A bud harvested when it’s still closed but barely showing color will keep opening indoors, giving you long-lasting color.

On warm spring days, check the bed daily, since tight buds in the morning can be fully open by afternoon.

There’s a trade-off between stem length and the bulb’s future, though. Cutting low or pulling the whole plant gives the longest stem but reduces the bulb’s chances of recharging. If you want flowers next year, leave as much foliage behind as you can.

Cutting Tulips for the Longest Vase Life

1. Cut tulips when buds are barely showing color.
2. Cut only the flower stem. Leave the foliage if you want the bulb to have a better chance of returning.
3. Outside, cut low at the base if you want the longest stems. Do not cut more than you need.
4. Inside, re-cut the bottom of the stem at a 45-degree angle so it has more surface area for water uptake and doesn’t sit flat on the bottom of the vase. Florists traditionally make this cut underwater to keep air from being drawn into the stem.
5. Top off the water as the flowers use it.

Protect Tulips From Animals

Animals can be the most frustrating part of growing tulips. Squirrels dig up newly planted bulbs in fall, drawn to the loose soil and the smell of bulb skins. Deer and rabbits browse the leaves and flowers in spring, and the bulb can’t rebuild its energy.

Defending Your Tulips: 4 Steps

1. Lay chicken wire or hardware cloth over new plantings, anchor it, and mulch over the top so stems can grow through the holes.
2. Use 1/4-inch hardware cloth to stop voles; 1/2-inch mesh is too large to keep them out.
3. Plant near deer-resistant bulbs like daffodils, grape hyacinths, or alliums.
4. Apply repellents or use fencing where deer are a serious problem.

Learn which plants can offer some protection in our guide to deer-resistant gardens.

Forcing Tulips Indoors

Forcing is a way to enjoy tulip flowers indoors any time of the year. Give the bulbs a long, cold, dark rest, then bring them into warmth, and they bloom for weeks.

A refrigerator is the preferred spot for cooling, but a cold garage or breezeway works in many areas. Use large, high-quality bulbs, and plan on them being one-time use, since forced bulbs rarely bloom well again.

Force Tulips in Stages

1. Plant large bulbs in a pot close together, with the point just below the soil surface and flat sides facing out.
2. Keep the pots cold and dark for 12 to 16 weeks.
3. Water if needed so they don’t dry out. Keep away from ripening fruit.
4. When you’re ready to start them, move the pots to a cool, dim spot around 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit for a few days.
5. Shift the pots to a bright room at around 60 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit, turning them occasionally so the stems grow straight.
6. Expect flowers about 2 to 4 weeks after the bulbs leave the cold storage.

Final Advice

Everyone loves tulips, and they’re easy for anyone to grow. You just have to set your expectations about how long they’ll last. When you buy bulbs, you get what you pay for; skip the cheap boxes of small mixed bulbs if you want an impressive show.

If you’re new to tulips, start small and plant some in a few spots. Try a group in a border, a handful in a protected cutting bed, some in a pot. Each one teaches you what you need to adjust before going all in, whether that’s better drainage, a little shade, or a plan for the deer and squirrels.

Happy growing!