Tips to Grow By:

Don’t get hung up on planting depth. Old House Gardens offers a few basic guidelines:

• Plant larger bulbs deeper than smaller bulbs (approximately three times the height of the bulb).
• Make sure to plant deeper in sandy soils, less so in heavy soils.
• Plant deeper in the North, less so in the South.
• American Meadows offers great step-by-step planting instructions in their easy to follow HOW TO PLANT FALL FLOWER BULBS.
• Take photos of your bulbs so you can look back to see when and where they’re blooming.
• Use a digging fork in order to avoid skewering other bulbs already planted.
• Plant fragrant bulbs in an area where you’ll be working in the spring so you can enjoy them.
• Choose planting areas you can see from indoors; it’s likely the weather won’t be that welcoming in early spring.

One More Thing About Tulips:

Did you know that some tulips are fragrant? Longfield Gardens offers a fragrant tulip collection (//www.longfield-gardens.com/plantname/Fragrant-Tulip-Collection), listing four scented varieties that also are available separately. They include ‘Ad Rem’, ‘Mount Tacoma’, ‘Princess Irene,’ and ‘Red Princess’.

Jay Hutchins of Brent and Becky’s Bulbs recommends a variety called ‘Brownie’ for some serious scent. I would have named it “Caramel Brownie,” as it’s color is more like caramel gone neon, with bright swirls of deep gold swirling into pink. Besides scent and color, it’s a petal-packing double that blooms early so it won’t be done by a late spring heatwave.

‘Orange Favorite’ is another scented tulip, and it’s a beauty. Each flower gives a first impression of pinky-orange. But as it opens, you’ll notice petals are fringed and then kissed gold along their edges. This special treatment is what puts ‘Orange Favorite’ into the parrot category, known for its fringed, twisted, brightly-colored petals.