How to Grow Tulips to Bloom

Select the best tulip bulbs by inspecting them closely. Choose the largest ones that appear to be free from disease and damage. If you like the short tulip types with more open-blossomed flowers, choose the early blooming tulips. For taller tulips with a traditional cup shape, choose the later blooming varieties.

Plant your tulips between September and November before the ground freezes. Plant them in well-drained soil in a sunny location. Plant them 1 to 2 inches deeper than the recommendations on the package.

Mix the soil with aged manure or bulb food. Water the tulips well after planting them and during dry winters. After the tulip flowers are spent, cut off the stems and let the leaves dry and turn brown in place. When the tulips start to appear the second spring season, sprinkle them with some bulb food.

Watch out for tulip blight (Botrytis tulipae), a fungus that thrives in damp overcast weather. This fungus typically attacks tulips damaged by hail or frost. To prevent this fungus from ravaging your tulips, follow some good cultural procedures -- handle the bulbs carefully to prevent injury, remove any diseased bulbs as soon as you notice them. You can recognize the disease by the small, slightly sunken oval spots that usually have a dark margin. The flowers might have lighter colored lesions and the stems might rot off. To prevent tulip blight from occurring at all, apply a fungicide as soon as the leaves emerge from the ground. Spray the plants several times until they reach the bloom stage. If your tulips get infected, rotate the planting site the next season. The fungus can live in the ground for many years.

Deter rodents from eating your tulip bulbs by building a cage to protect them. According to Sydney Eddison, an author and contributor to "Fine Gardening Magazine," building five or six cages with 1/2-inch hardware cloth deters rodents from eating tulip bulbs. Fold up four sides of the hardware cloth, leaving the top open and place in the ground with the tulips inside.