Tulip bloom does not last long, and after a few days the beautiful flowers begin to fade, and the flower bed loses its aesthetics. Even if all tulips have withered, they need appropriate care after flowering. Hot and dry weather speeds up this process. Watering, so necessary for tulips during flowering, should be continued after the buds fall off. The fact is that for two to three weeks the formation of bulbs takes place underground, and thanks to regular watering, they accumulate the necessary amount of nutrients. Many gardeners are wondering: "When to cut tulips after flowering?" Doing this is not worth it. The leaves should dry out naturally, after which the bulb will be ready for digging.
Tulips have already faded, care after flowering comes down to a few points:
1. Top dressing and enhanced watering. As soon as the tulip flower fades, carefully remove the peduncle. Over the next two weeks, tulips are watered and fertilized, as this is the period when the bulbs accumulate nutrients. How to feed tulips after flowering? Fertilizers containingnitrogen and chlorine are present. For better storage, tulip bulbs require phosphorus and potassium. Such fertilizer is applied under tulip bushes at the rate of 30-40 grams per square meter. You can use solute, aquarin or crystallin.
2. Leaf cutting. So, the tulips withered, leaving after flowering in the future comes down to cutting the leaves. You can completely remove them only after the final yellowing. Premature cutting of the leaves causes the bulbs to lag behind in development. In order not to lose the place where tulips grew, experienced gardeners leave a sign indicating the plant variety. Yellow leaves spoil the look of the front garden, but this can be fixed by pressing them to the ground with an object.
3. Digging up tulip bulbs. So, the tulips have faded, the post-flowering care is over, it's time to start digging up the bulbs.
This procedure is carried out in the last days of June until the second decade of July. Determining the readiness of the bulbs is simple - one of them is dug up and inspected. The mature bulb has well-formed roots, brown spots appear on the scales, and the ends of the leaves and stem of the tulip are easily wound around the finger.
When digging up tulips, you should follow the basic rules:
- for digging, choose a sunny day so that the bulbs dry well;
- when harvesting in wet weather, the bulbs must be washed with water and dried;
- the shovel should be deepened so as not to damage the roots;
- bulbs are treated with a 5% solution of potassium permanganate;
- diseased, damaged and unsprouted bulbs are to be culled;
- start digging from the earliest varieties;
-To maintain tulip variety, large flower size, disease resistance, bulbs should be dug every year, some varieties are allowed to be dug every two years.
