Never mind......I already sold what I could of my tulips and lost the rest. Oh, well, maybe I can figure out when to wrap and store them in a refrigerator next year.

Oh my goodness! I am so sorry.
kay

Hi - I'm sorry you lost yours - I did too..the deer got mine (3000) planted last fall. First time ever!

Tulips will last up to 3 weeks - I don't push it longer than that. I pull mine (or you can cut them too), just when they are starting to show color. You can literally "pop" them by gently grabbing the stem down low, between the leaves and tugging, the stem will pop off and you will get a much longer stem!

I wrap mine in 10-stem bunches in newspaper, like a cone and tape the top down. I then store them flat in my cooler (a fridge might do, but watch out for the humidity or if it gets too cold). Don't stack the bunches too much, they do get heavy and squish the bottom ones! And yes, they are out of water! Try leaving one out of water and then recutting it, putting it in water and see what happens! I left a bunch of red tulips one year in the bed in the sun for a day and they were just fine!

I take them and cut the ends and open up the top of the newspaper and put them in buckets with a little preservative and water so they'll start coloring up before I take them to sell.

So...good luck for both of us next year!
Wendy

Flowers4u, Thank you so much for responding! That was the exact information I needed to know. Thanks so much for sharing. Like I said this is my first year growing tulips....so I don't really know what I am doing. I will try what you said next year!

I hope next year goes better. The timing of early spring flowers is a tad bit worrisome. We just can't control so many factors.

In Lynn Byczynski's book The Flower Farmer, you can see a picture of tulip buds showing the ideal cutting stage for storage. I had read about people cutting tulips several times a day to get them at the optimal stage, but didn't understand WHAT the ideal stage was. Page 236 shows a clear picture of buds in different stages.

I did pick some without any color as an experiment, and within a few days they colored up quite nicely. I was pleasantly surprised, but not sure you can count on that after storage.

I am trying to decide if I want to try for tulips next year. We have deer, and while I was able to protect the ~200 I grew, I only sold them the day after picked. If I could be assured of storing them until Mother's Day, it could be worthwhile to plant many more.