8/30/2010

Tulipa tarda

I write about it now because at this time of year used to repot the bulbs and then water them in mid September.




It is not an oddity this plant, but I like it very much, because it's quite easy to make it happy in a pot also. It has survived even our last dreadful winter when most of our bulbs in pots died. It makes a beautiful display in spring with the many pretty yellow flowers and glossy ribbon-like leaves. And I've just read that it could be also forced in winter. I will try it maybe this time.

Its Hungarian name is 'two colored tulip', which is interesting, because the tepals outside are greenish-grayish, inside bright yellow gradating to white. Well, these are already 4 colors...


The flowers open only for the sake of the Sun, in cloudy weather they are closed. A bulb can produce man flowers, even 8, though I never experienced such an amount.

The scientific name maybe refers to later flowering time compared with some similar tulips (for example Tulipa turkestanica, Tulipa dasystemon), the word tardus meaning late, lazy. 

The flowering time depends much on weather. We saw its flowers sometimes in early April, but this year had this pleasure only in the third part of April and early May. Maybe this is the reason why it can be forced: the temperature depending flowering time. In my experience Tulipa dasystemon bloomed at the end of March irrespectively of the temperature.

Tulipa tarda is distributed in Central-Asia, mostly on the Tien-Shan and lives on stony soils with scarce water in summer. For this reason and also for its dwarf size (20 cm) is a good rock garden plant. I also keep it in stony compost. At flowering time and then until the leaves are dying I give it much water and also liquid feed with K. Potash helps for the next season's bloom. I think in a rock garden it needs no extra feeding. During the summer I keep the bulbs in the compost but without any water. 

I have many bulbs in a not too big pot, to have many flowers and I repot them every August. Beyond the dry outer scales there are usually a big, flowering sized bulb and some smaller ones:



I remove this dry scale and split the bulbs before potting. On the left you can see a flowering sized bulb and on the right a young one which hopefully will flower in two years:



This year's 'crop' is this:


I used to put the bulbs at about 5 cm deep. I give them water at first time in mid september. During the autumn they get some more water because the bulbs make new roots and they must not dry out at this time. In winter the compost is kept relatively dry. Wet soil during winter frost causes de bulb dying. I begin again to water in March.

It is a pity that I don't have a picture with the seed pods. The seeds are papery just like of other plants of the Liliaceae family:


We've got only one single time seeds. It can be propagated also by seeds, in the garden it sows itself.

And finally another picture from this spring, this one made by my husband:



No comments: