How to Keep a Potted Tulip Indoors

Whether you grow the diminutive minis or the varieties with huge blooms, tulips cheerfully herald the coming of spring. Typically planted en masse in a garden bed, the variety of color they bring to the landscape is astounding. Tulips hail from Asia where for centuries they grew wild. It was the Turks, however, that first cultivated the flower. The tulip, while easy to grow in the garden, present a bit of a challenge for the indoor gardener. Providing enough sun is the biggest hurdle.

15-15-15 fertilizer
Garden snips or scissors

Instructions

- 1
  Provide the potted tulip with bright, indirect sunlight. A spot near a south-facing window is ideal.
- 2
  Keep the potted tulip in a cool area of the home, between 50 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit, away from furnaces and other heat sources.
- 3
  Water the tulip enough to keep the soil slightly moist. Don't overwater it or the bulb may rot.
- 4
  Fertilize the potted tulip once a week throughout the growing season. Use a 15-15-15 liquid fertilizer, diluted to half the strength suggested by the manufacturer.
- 5
  Snip the dead tulip's stem to soil level, but allow the foliage to remain. Make sure to remove the flower as soon as it dies to prevent it from going to seed. The foliage eventually turns yellow and dies back, but in the meantime it feeds the bulb so that it has energy to rebloom the following season.
- 6
  Cut the foliage to the soil when it completely dies down. Place the potted tulip in a dry, dark area and withhold water for the remainder of the summer.
- 7
  Wait until September to move the potted tulips to an area where the temperature remains between 40 and 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Allow it to remain for 12 to 16 weeks. During this period, keep the soil slightly moist. After removing it from the dark area, place the potted tulips in an area with low light and temperatures between 50 and 60 degrees. Move the pot into bright light and temperatures 10 degrees warmer -- 60 to 70 degrees -- when the shoots turn green. This generally occurs within four to five days after removing it from the dark.
- 8
  Water the potted tulips to keep the top of the soil moist, and turn the pot every two or three days so that they grow straight.

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