Regular readers know that last fall I planted bulbs in my garden. I had gone to Costco to pick up some bulk toilet paper, and saw a display with lots of bags of bulbs. These mass planting bags were 3-5 dozen bulbs of different varieties. I managed to get a bag of daffodils and another of tulips – each for about $15. I didn’t want to spend too much, because we didn’t really have a plan for our garden, and didn’t want to do a bunch of work preparing beds for planting tulips, only to have to dig them up and transplant the bulbs.

But there were two sections that I had free reign in, and I decided to put daffodils in one, and tulips in another. I was surprised to see that almost every single bulb I planted grew, and flowered. Who knew that growing tulips could be so easy.

Our winter wasn’t too severe last year. Here in Austin, we very rarely get to freezing, and only had one day of snow, but apparently it got cold enough, and as soon as things started to warm up outside, my tulips began to grow. I planted them in 4 rows of 10, and although this first year they look a bit strange all lined up against the back fence, I know that next year, they will multiply, and look more random.

And to ensure that next year I get even more, I’m picking or deadheading about 50%, and letting the other 50% go to seed. The seeds allow for cross-pollination, and new colors to develop, and the ones that get dead-headed encourage the bulbs to grow and multiply.

Today, when I decided to take the photos, it had been raining all night, and some of the flowers didn’t look as pretty as I expected. But even though there is a bit of dirt on the petals, and some of them are a bit water logged, the colors are still amazing.

How do you grow your tulips? Have you ever tried?

A couple of months ago I planted around 3 dozen tulip bulbs in my backyard, and this last week they started to bloom

Red tulip bulb blooming

These purple tulips came up first

I plan on deadheading some tulips, but also letting some go to seed.