Planting Tulips: Make Sure You Have the Right Soil (artificial flowers)

October 1st, 2008 admin Posted in gardening |

By Dave Pipitone

When you are planting tulips for next spring’s tulip garden, don’t make the same mistake that I did last year. Making a mistake at planting time in the fall is costly. If you make this mistake, you may as well as buy tulips next spring instead of cutting fresh ones for your own tulip bouquet.

Are you sure that you are putting tulip bulbs in the best soil to grow? If you have doubts about growing tulips as you plan your spring garden, consider these gardening tips.

Let me explain. I love tulips, even though the flower stage is only two to three weeks long from mid-March to late May. Last fall, I planted about 60 purple tulip bulbs in my backyard. I eagerly waited for Spring to come so I could savor those beautiful flowers. The winter was long and cold with more snow falls than in previous years. So, I was ready for Spring to come. But I was surprised. Of the 60 flower bulbs I planted, only one tulip flower grew and blossomed. I couldn’t figure it out. Later in the Spring, I planted my impatiens. When I went to dig up my tulip bulbs, I discovered that they were soft and mushy - like pickled onions.

The wet soil was so saturated that the bulbs became sponges, not flowers! Then, I realized that the clay layer under the top soil caused the problem. The clay layer did not let the water drain so my tulip bulbs were sitting in an underground swimming pool!

Tulips grow best in soil that drains best. The origin of tulips is in Turkey, where the soil is very sandy and porous. When traders began to bring the bulbs to plant tulips in Holland, the sandy soil was just right and many fields became like one flower garden after another.

Before you start planning your tulip garden, make sure to dig down about two feet or more to see what the underlying soil is like. If you have a layer of clay near the surface, dig deeper and replace that clay with rich dark top soil. You can buy a 30 pound bag of dirt from a home improvement center for less than two dollars.

So when you plant tulips, check the soil. Porous dirt is good dirt dirt. And be sure that before your tulip bulbs are secure planted, you know the rest of the planting secrets for the best tulip garden design that will please you next Spring.

Dave Pipitone is hopelessly in love with tulips and nourishes them in his Hope Patch. To get your free 32 page report on how to plant a tulip garden, visit http://www.tulipreview.com

Easy Tips to Keeping Your Plants Health By Proper Watering
By Aydan Corkern

Almost every home has plants in them. Some are real and some are fake. It makes their house look very nice and beautiful, but it takes a lot to take care of or to keep it clean. You can have them in your house or in your yard. It doesn’t matter because it will look good any way. Plants need a lot of water to survive and grow to stay green.

Plants are living things just like the rest of us they need water to feed it. You plant them in the ground or in a pot either inside or outside your home. They also need dirt to live and grow or it will turn brown. Then it will wilt, and it will die. But you also have to water it every so often. Have you ever cut off a piece of a plant? You will see water coming out of the spot that was cut.

Water flows through the plant just like our blood flows through our veins. Water is like blood to it’ that is how it lives. If you leave to go out of town, you need to make sure your plant has enough water for the time you are gone, so it can stay healthy and green. Water and dirt are the biggest elements that a plant needs.

You don’t need to water fake plants, but you do have to clean it by spraying or wiping it with water to make it look real. These are a lot easier to take care of. Some fake plants look and feel real, but some do not. All real plants love to be sprayed with water because it is like a shower to them. People use sprinklers to help them from drying up on these hot summer days. During the winter months, some plants have to come inside to survive the cold. The cold will kill some plants but not many. The only ones that have to come in are the hanging plants and the plants in the pots.

If you water them too much, you will have a mess and it can drown them. If you do not water them enough, the little amount of water will not do anything for them. Some people love to take care of plants because it’s like a child to them. You have to make sure the temperature is right and that they get a lot of sun, or you can use a light bulb to keep them warm. You can’t keep the light bulb too close to the plant because it will make it dry up.

Aydan Corkern is a writer of many topics, visit some of her sites, like

Water Damage Restoration and Document Drying.

Send Flowers To Someone You Love