How to Plant Tulip Bulbs: Guide for Gardens & Containers

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How to Plant Tulip Bulbs

Tulips are beautiful early spring flowers to have in your garden, but they’re a bit fussier than many other spring bulbs. Here’s a complete guide to planting tulip bulbs in a garden, raised bed, or container, along with some tips to make growing them a little less labor-intensive and a little more productive!

Choosing Tulip Varieties

Before you even start to plant tulips, you have to choose a variety. Despite being known as perennials, some cultivated tulip varieties actually only perform well during the first year they’re planted. In the following spring, they may have fewer or no blooms at all. 

Many gardeners opt to just plant new bulbs every year, but that’s pretty time-consuming and expensive. Thankfully, there are a few naturalizing varieties like Species tulips, Darwin hybrids, and Greiggi tulips that often come back year after year without incident. Species tulips offer the most of all these—they are resistant to squirrels, chipmunks, and other pests in addition to returning each year. 

Tulip Planting Problems

In addition to being fussy perennials, tulips are also susceptible to many pests and diseases, making caring for them even more difficult. Consider the following before reading the next sections on how to actually plant them.

Overwatering

Overwatering can kill tulip bulbs before they even have a chance to bloom since they’re highly susceptible to rotting. Tulips do best in sandy soils that don’t retain water. Avoid growing them in areas with heavy clay soils or ones that gets a lot of rainfall or irrigation throughout the summer. In wet soil, tulips are prone to fungal diseases.

Cold – But Not Too Cold

Tulips need around 12 weeks of cold temperatures to bloom. In some cases, you can force them in the refrigerator, but just having them in the ground through winter is generally the best way. That said, if they’re too cold and freeze solid, they may die. If they aren’t kept in an environment that’s around 40 degrees, they will fail to produce. It’s a balancing act.

Pests

Unfortunately, tulips also fall prey to garden pests like squirrels, chipmunks, mice, and deer. You can prevent these pests by interplanting tulip bulbs with other spring-flowering bulbs that they dislike, such as daffodil bulbs, crocuses, grape hyacinths, and regular hyacinths. You can also add organic rodent repellent or crushed shells when planting. For deer, consider fencing off the area the tulips grow in before they start to sprout in the spring. Using a piece of chicken wire can also help keep pests at bay.

How to Plant Tulip Bulbs in the Garden

In spite of those dire warnings, it is possible to have beautiful tulips in your yard or garden! Just keep the previous problems in mind as you plan your tulip planting.

​Prep Your Area

Wait as long as possible to plant tulip bulbs. Tulips can even be planted after other spring flower bulbs, like daffodils. The best planting time is when the soil temperature is regularly in the 40s, which is usually late fall, from late September to November in the various northeast zones. Make sure you plant before the ground freezes, though.

Start by preparing a planting area in your garden that gets full sun in spring and hasn’t had tulips in it for at least 3 years. The area should have well-drained soil. If it doesn’t, you can try adding organic material like compost or peat moss to help with drainage.

Raised beds can be easier since the dirt works up a little better, and the full section you want to plant in can be dug out and moved to the side rather than digging and planting each bulb in an individual hole.

Gardens and sections of your yard work fine too; just dig individual planting holes using a garden trowel or a bulb planter. If you have many or want to make your life easier, a bulb auger may be helpful.

Planting Process

Depth is important for tulips. The package your tulips came in should have depth instructions for that unique variety. Most should be planted 4-10 inches deep. Generally, the larger the bulb, the deeper you should plant—go with a depth three times the height of the bulb. For example, large bulbs should be planted deeper than smaller bulbs.

When setting the tulip bulbs, make sure their pointy side is facing up, with the bulbous bottom set down into the ground. If you’re worried about pests digging down to get them, add some organic repellent or crushed up shells in with them.

Since different types of tulips and with other spring-flowering bulbs are often planted together, be careful when spacing the bulbs. Most bulbs come with instructions that mention the spacing as well as depth tips. For any that don’t have tips, a good rule of thumb is to leave space around the bulb that’s twice its height—so for an approximately 1-inch bulb, leave 2 inches on every side, for a 2-inch bulb, leave 4 inches in every direction, and so on so forth.

Once the bulbs are set, cover them with a little bit of compost and the dirt that you dug out. Pack it in and water them thoroughly. You won’t water them again until at least spring.

Protection

For pest protection, you can cover the top of the soil with mulch. Dead leaves are plentiful and work well for this. You can also add a fine mesh piece of chicken wire over the top to keep pests from digging. If you struggle with deer, you can fence off the tulip bed. Fencing can be done in fall or in spring before the tulips start growing.

Planting Tulip Bulbs in Pots

One of the easier ways to deal with tulips, especially if they aren’t a naturalizing variety, is to plant them in containers. Containers also allow more flexibility in bloom time and may be easier to care for and prevent pests.

To start, put some fresh potting soil in the bottom of a large container with plenty of holes for good drainage. Follow the depth directions included on the packet. For spacing, you can typically ignore the instructions on the packet and keep them all within a quarter inch or so of each other—very close, but not close enough to touch. Place all the bulbs pointy end up, then cover with the rest of the potting soil and pack it down. Water the bulbs thoroughly, then cover the pot with plastic or place it under an overhang, outdoor table, or other dry place where it won’t receive rainfall. Don’t water it again until leaves appear.

If you want to speed up the process and skip overwintering them in the pot, you can force the bulbs by refrigerating them for around 12 weeks. After twelve weeks have come and gone, take the pre-cooled bulbs out and proceed with the planting instructions and water, then watch for them to emerge!

Happy Tulip Bulb Planting!

With these tips, you should now have a good plan for planting tulip bulbs this fall (or at other points in the year if you’re growing in containers!). For the best display, use naturalized tulips and follow the planting instructions for beautiful spring blooms. Happy growing!

Bulb planting is just one important item on a fall garden to-do list. Here are some other tips for winterizing your garden.