tulips not flowering..

hello everyone.. i have a problem with my tulips this year.. they have not flowered as well as normal.. i was wondering if it was because of the dry weather we have had down south.. or do they have to be lifted and divided like other bulbs..

Hey gardenfanatic,

Are these tulips left over from previous years, or did you plant them last autumn? If they are old bulbs, then it's quite common for fancy tulips to fail after the first year. Unlike daffodils and many other bulbs, they just don't like staying in the soil year after year and should be lifted once the leaves die back, then stored dry until the autumn. On the other hand, if these are new bulbs planted in 2011, then they should have flowered. Planting bulbs too deeply or too shallow may have stopped them blooming. If they were planted quite late in autumn, then this could also have stopped them flowering well.

I live in Yorkshire and we planted new red and white tulip bulbs along with blue muscari in all our village tubs, planters and hayracks. The tulips have been very hit and miss this year with differing results. Some have come up only for the bud not to develop proparly others have not come up at all. So we now have some red white and blue tubs with white and blue or red and blue in others. All very strange. We use new compost and bulbs each year and spring 2011 planting was brilliant despite the bad winter and we had nearly a 100% success with the tulips we choose.

Hi borassus...  these have been in gound for 4 years now.. i lift and remove lot of new baby ones every other year.. i normally have a large gorgeous display of htem but this year as Roly2 has said..they have not been good at all... even my muscari have been less than normal blooming amount.. they have come up very short in height and small flower heads or none at all..and these are just the normal tall standard tulip.. i have no fancy frilly ones or double ones etc..

i love my tulips and i am very upset by this lack of display... i ahve asked other people and some are saying the same about htis years flowers.. i think it might have something to do with the very dry winter we had here.. hardly any rain and i think they need it at start of the bulbs growing time.

thank you for your replies and i will consider lifting htem each year...but i have so many it will be a big task along with not disturbing surrounding plants..

It might also be to do with last year's dry spell as they were finishing - although tulips like it dry in summer, they do need water when developing.

Alina.. many thanks I was wondering if it had anything to do with it too... i will lift all the bulbs this year and replant at end of year..and see if htey good next year.

man thanks.

Hi, I have had exactly the same problem. Last year they flowered really well but this year they have been poor- just shows the unpredictability of gardening!

I know this is an old thread but I wonder if any one else has had a problem with their tulips this year. I have had a similar experience to Roly2 last year. New tulips in pots and almost non existant blooms, the foliage seems to be ok but the buds did'nt develop properly. They were planted in November and from a good source so I feel  very disappointed and completely baffled! I used new multi purpose compost although a different brand to what I have used before. I would welcome any comments.

All my new tulips were in pots and did well. I put them in the cold GH for the worst of the wet and cold. They were in and out at least 3 times. Only the species tulips carry on from year to year and some of those haven't this year. Turkestanica is pretty reliable. Sylvestris came back for a 2nd year though perhaps not as many as last year. There's a little pink one that may be called bakerit. That's been returning for years