Top Tips on How to Use (and Grow) Tulips for Flower Farmers
Tulips are one of the most beautiful and venerated blooms of spring and for good reason. Coming in a rainbow of colors, they are some of the most spectacular and boldly colored blooms of the entire year and are also one of the first flowers to bloom (along with daffodils).
Although tulips are generally treated as an annual (with the exception of a few varieties) they can be a good spring flower for the flower farmer to grow!
Here are some tips on how to utilize spring blooming tulips in your flower farming business
Consider your business model
Tulips are one of those crops that has some pretty interesting and unique requirements. They’re rather labor intensive - the planting, the harvesting, the processing is all very physical and requires time, while they also are not usually able to be sold at a high price due to imported tulips being sold in large volumes at a very low price (similar to the dry-harvested daffodils that are so cheap and show up so frequently this time of the year).
When you can purchase a ten stem bunch of tulips for $11.99, that comes out to around $1.20 per stem. In some cases, I’m paying more than that for just the tulip bulb itself, not to mention the cost in materials and resources and labor involved in planting and harvesting it, so I can actually lose money on tulips if I’m not careful.
Tulips also aren’t perennials like daffodils - they are harvested in its entirety every year, pulling the entire bulb out - so you have yearly overhead with the labor, resources and investment in the bulb that makes them much higher overhead compared to daffodils or hyacinths or other spring bulbs that naturally perennialize.
We’ve been able to incorporate some tulips into our business model, but we do not grow them the same way we grow other flowers - they are used mostly as focal flowers in mixed bouquets or arrangements, and usually for wedding design (but more on that later)
Plant them in the fall if you can
Tulips require a good 12-16 weeks of cold (below 40 F) weather in order to bloom and grow properly. If you can provide that in your cooler or refrigerator, that is great but even better is if you live in an area where the weather remains that cold out in nature. Tulips can survive down to -40 F (in essence being frozen completely into the ground) so they are pretty hardy little plants that love a good chilling period.
Trench and then plant
When planting tulips en masse, you don’t want to be using a bulb digger to singly excavate a single hole for each and every bulb. First of all, that would take up way too much time for anything over a few dozen bulbs, and secondly you would probably have your hands and wrists fall off during the process. Save your wrists and hands by instead digging a large and shallow trench (3-4” deep) and the planting your tulips into the trench and then covering it back up with the back fill or other soil.
Plant densely
Tulips can grow very closely together. In fact, you can plant them where the sides of the bulbs are touching each other and they will grow just fine. It’s a great way to pack in hundreds of tulips into a very small area.
Alternatively, you can plant in temporary raised beds
Those of you who follow Jenny Loven are probably aware of her recommendation to make tulip planting even easier by simply laying out the bulbs on the bare ground and then covering them with a layer of compost or soil - creating both a raised bed and the perfect environment for tulips to grow into. Tulips don’t need super deep soil after all, just enough to keep their bulbs covered and allow for a little bit of root growth (they can even be grown without soil in the right conditions)so this works nicely (and you can disassemble the “beds” after you’re done or plant into them as well)
Tulips like it consistently cold
While it’s important to have the chill period to ensure that they have received the correct amount of cold to trigger blooming, it’s also important to have good and cool conditions while they are growing to ensure a steady and uninterrupted growing period that is not prematurely terminated by warmer temperatures. If your tulips go through warm and then cold and then warm and then cold oscillating temperatures, they will end up either blooming early on short stems or have weird distorted blooms and stems.
Be careful if you’re in a warm or dry winter climate when growing tulips
Although you can grow tulips if you are in a warm or dry winter climate, it’s a lot more difficult and requires a few things including a) buying pre-chilled tulip bulbs b) ensuring your tulips get plenty of water and moisture c) growing them out during the coldest and wettest part of the year for you. For us, that usually means the month of April and praying that the temperatures don’t spike, keeping them well watered and sometimes even putting shade cloth above them to keep the soil cool.
Be extra careful if you’re growing double or peony-flowering varieties
We haven’t had luck growing the fluffy doubles, parrots and big fully-double (or peony-flowering) varieties here because we are warmer and drier. Because they are a bit more delicate compared to the sturdier Darwin Hybrids, the ‘fancy’ tulips bloom on very short stems and don’t tend to do well for us at all. If we lived in a cold and frigid Zone 3b/4a, I think we would focus on growing these gorgeous and beautiful flowers, but in a warm and dry 7b that doesn’t work out so well for us.
Watch out for voles and other pests
Unfortunately tulips are a favorite snack of many animals including voles in particular. Voles are rather ravenous consumers of tulips, taking out entire beds of tulips very quickly. Prairie dogs and rabbits and deer also will take them out as well, so if you live in an area where animal predation pressure is high I would advise growing them in a very well-protected area (in a bed with chicken wire around the bottom, sides and top would be a good way to protect them).
Use different environments to succession plant
Our friends Ralph and Jeriann at Deadhead suggested growing tulips in the field, in an unheated hoop and then a heated hoop for a succession of tulips during the season. They would bloom first in the heated hoop, then the unheated hoop, then the field, and by the time one planting was done the next one was ready to start. You can even use different microclimates in your property to stagger blooms in the same way - one in a sheltered area by a building that stays warmer, one in full sun, one in the part shade to encourage a wider bloom period for tulips.
Harvest them when you see them coloring up and the sepals are starting to split
You’ll want to harvest tulips when you see their sepals (the green outer petals) are just starting to split away to reveal the colorful petals on the inside. Like, a narrow strip of color in between the sepals, but the bud itself is still mostly closed up. The tulip will continue to open up as it is exposed to light and heat (in essence growing in the vase) but this will ensure you get the maximum vase life out of them.
Harvest them completely - bulb and all!
Growing tulips for harvesting as a cut flower is different than growing for a landscape or ornamental. In this case, you want to harvest the entire tulip with the bulb for a few reasons:
To gain stem length - harvesting the tulip at the bulb gives you the longest stem length
Harvesting with the bulb ensures that they stay fresh for longer (more on that in a little bit)
The tulip bulb that produces your long stemmed beauty won’t produce a cut flower quality tulip after that - it’s done. To leave the tulip bulb in your bed means that you’re just having a plant that likely won’t produce a bloom the following year (or if it does, it will be very sad and not worth cutting) - better to clear it out and plant new bulbs the following year! (You can plant the bulbs out into your landscape or donate them to a park or public garden if you would like).
So when harvesting, pull that entire sucker out of there! Reach down to the base of the plant and grab a hold of the entire plant. You can even use a potato fork or pitchfork to loosen up the soil if needed (just be careful not to poke the bulbs) It’s actually quite gratifying to do so (you haven’t really lived if you haven’t hauled up an entire crate of daffodils by their bulbs) and then the space will be cleared out in that bed, which leads us to our next point…
You can succession plant where they were originally planted
Since you’re harvesting the entire tulip and bulb, there isn’t anything you have to worry about disturbing in the soil they were growing in, so you are in essence ready to plant an entire new crop into the area! We usually will succession plant an annual like zinnias or basil into the bed, but a great crop to plant into the area are dahlias of course.
Just don’t succession plant tulips into the same bed the next year
Unfortunately tulips can fall prey to a fungus known as Botryitis tulipae, producing brown spots and withered, twisted, distorted leaves and flowers. This is known as ‘tulip fire’ (because the plants look as if they were scorched by fire) and can be very problematic.
You should rotate your tulips every three years to ensure that they have two years without tulips in order to prevent tulip fire from taking root in your crops. If you catch the tulips that have it in time, you can spray an antifungal to try and prevent it from spreading, but it does spread like.. well, fire and can take out entire crops in a short amount of time. Make sure you also follow correct sanitation guidelines when it comes to harvesting and cleaning tools and equipment as well to prevent the spread of tulip fire.Tulips can be stored in a cooler for a long period of time
After harvesting the entire tulip bulb and all (you did harvest the entire plant, right?) the tulips are ready to be processed. But, if you’re holding the tulips for a while - say that you’re wanting them for a wedding or a farmer’s market or to sell them to a florist - then you’ll be able to just hold them in a cooler for quite a long period of time. Weeks, if not months to be honest (we did harvest some tulips that remained super fresh for three months, although I don’t recommend you make it a regular practice). Just make sure you bundle them in newspaper, shove them tight into sleeves, tie the stems together, or strap them laterally into a bulb crate (and store the bulb crate upright) when storing to ensure they stay upright and straight as possible.
Mix them with other spring materials
Although we’ve discussed that it is difficult to charge what tulips are worth (to even split even on the bulbs) tulips do great if they are combined with other spring materials to create mixed bouquets or arrangements. A very early focal flower, they do well with all the materials of spring including flowering branches, woody stems of curly willow, daffodils and ranunculus and anemones and with some of the later tulips joining in with the first of the hardy annuals and biennials.
Although you may lose money on the tulip in the mixed arrangement, you’ll gain money by being able to sell other materials that other people may not initially be interested in until you make it into a beautiful arrangement for them to view.Or, sell them by themselves
We don’t sell straight bunches of tulips simply because other customers can buy them so readily and cheaply at grocery stores, but in the correct conditions and situation you might be able to do quite well. For instance, if you were able to sell them at a farm stand or farmer’s market in a cute container or if you were able to sell at a mother’s day pop-up you might do quite well.
Reflex them for a completely different look
If you are using them in design, I would advise you to reflex the petals backwards in order to show them off. It makes them look more like a lily or an exotic poppy, especially if they have a darker or lighter center that contrasts well with the interiors of the petals, and makes for quite a stunning flower that is very different from the little bubble-headed tulip you would normally think of.
Sell to florists
Although florists can get tulips very cheaply and readily from wholesalers, if you have the ability to grow the ‘fancier’ varieties of tulips you may be able to find a good customer in local florists. Particularly if you’re growing the desired varieties of ‘Copper Image’ and ‘La Belle Epoque’ and others well, your florists will likely want to buy every single stem that you have (especially these days with flower shortages across the board). Even still, if you have good quality tulips hit up your local florists - they may still want to buy from you knowing that the flowers are fresh and of the highest quality.
Incorporate them into a flower share CSA
A flower share or subscription works well with tulips. Simply choose how many weeks you’ll be offering tulips (and/or other flowering bulbs in spring) and you an presell your bunches or bouquets, which will make it easy to generate money early in the season.
Do a bulb share CSA
Alternatively, you could also purchase in some really cool tulip bulbs and sell them to your customers in the fall to plant and overwinter. Or, they could force their tulips in pots or containers and bring them out to sprout and bloom later in the winter too. People love tulips, and they are so colorful and bold that it’s hard not to like them, and they have proved very popular to many people wanting to greet spring with some beautiful tulip blooms!
I hope you found this helpful
Tulips are a great flower and crop to grow if you can plan for them properly to be a profitable and effective part of your flower farming business.
If you’re interested in growing other spring bulbs that produce cutting flowers, you may be interested in these posts:
How to Plant (and Grow) Daffodils
12 Spring Blooming Bulbs to Plant for Cut Flowers
Top Tips on How to Use (and Grow) Daffodils as a Flower Farmer
If you’re interested in learning more about flower farming and growing flowers like tulips as part of a business, you might be interested in the flower farmer eBook bundle. These eBooks are packed full of a ton of information for every aspect and style of growing flowers as a business and will help you be successful!
