A clump of Tulips straight out the garden
Tulip bulb with small offset attached
Separated offset
Tulips provide amazing spring colour in the garden, the range of colours, heights and flowering times available is just mind boggling. I always enjoy a trip to the Tulip Festival in Glenarm Castle every Spring to marvel at the luxurious displays and new varieties on show. But impulse planted Tulips soon become massive congested clumps, that start to affect flowering quality and growth. November is a great time to be lifting and slitting tulips you have in the garden, or indeed if you’ve lifted them after flowering (like me) and stored them in boxes for just this very job…
A lovely wee job for inside the potting shed or polytunnel. By splitting the clumps you get loads of offsets to either pot up or plant out in the garden, thus extending the tulip flowers throughout your garden.
The finished job, a big load of bulbs and offsets ready to be planted in the garden. Before where I just had Tulips in the front garden, I now have enough to plant the back garden too!. The offsets will take a year or two to come into flower (they have to gather energy and increase in bulk before they can flower), but when they come it’ll be spectacular.
Gracies wee red wagon is a handy garden tool for such a task, and encourages the kids to get involved with the planting. Heres’ to Spring!
Gareth Austin is a Community focused Horticulturist based in Derry-Londonderry and voice of Gardening on the Mark Patterson Show on BBC Radio Foyle. Gareth specialises in Community horticulture, offering a wide range of events, programmes and acitivity on engaging people in the exciting world of Horticulture. Gareth lectures in Horticulture in the North West Regional College and offers school horticulture programs through the Western Education + Library Board. Gareth is passionate about changing land-use to a more positive use, urban food production and showcasing the flora of county Derry through the City of Horti-Culture programme of events.
Source: Gareth Austin Horticultural & Media Services – Lifting and Splitting Tulips – Gareth Austin
