Fall Back to Spring Bulbs

On a crisp autumn day in 1593, an elderly botanist named Carolus Clusius planted a handful of tulip bulbs in a small garden at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. The act is considered by the Dutch as the birth of their famous flower bulb business. In the U.S.A. alone, more than 270 million tulips will be planted this fall by home gardeners coast-to-coast. Given this amazing quantity of flower bulbs that are planted, it amazes me even more that there is a large number of people stopping into our garden center in April that don’t realize that those beautiful tulips needed to be planted as bulbs in the fall. Since Tulips, along with bulbs like daffodils, crocus and hyacinths are spring bloomers. They are collectively know as ‘Spring Bulbs.’ This name sometimes confuses the consumer but if you remember that it’s the flowering time that gives the bulb group its name, you’ll be fine.

You can read the rest of this article in the Knol that I have published on google here.