Cut Flowers

Thought someone may be interested in this - about Flowers from the Farm. https://www.rhs.org.uk/shows-events/rhs-...m-the-farm#
You can search to see who grows/sells flowers locally to you. There are only 3 near me but I won't be setting up as a 4th.

Just had a look at this link as I’m going to attempt the odd cut bunch of flowers this year. I stopped reading when I got to this sentence.
Start with tulips in the spring, harvesting the whole bulb and throwing it away after the flower has been brought indoors.

This wasteful attitude really winds me up     . What’s wrong with replanting the bulb or just cutting the tulip and leaving the bulb in place. 
Maybe it’s me! Maybe I care to much about the plant or the insects & animals that benefit from them. This year , as with my trial run last year. I’ll never strip a plant of all its open blooms in one hit. Definitely not going to be ripping up bulbs just to make some pocket money!

Tulips rarely if ever come back in their second year. If they do they arent very reliable. So they are mostly treated as annuals. Some varieties are "perennial" not many though, and they rarely if ever naturalise in the ground.

When cutting them for the vase, unless you just cut the top two inches, the stem holds the leaves, so the bulb hast got anything to replenish it...so even if it was the perennial type, its even further unlikely that it will return.
Some people will lift with the bulb intact, not only to give a longer cutting stem, but for storing, giving a staggered flowering window. Picked with the bulb, wrapped in paper, they will continue to live, once cut and put in water they will start to open.

I stopped buying tulips for the garden for this reason. Digging them in is hard work - they are very sparse in their second year. Ballerina returned for a few years - but now they are long gone. Pots possibly have better luck.

Which is why I have opted to fill the garden with daffodils- hoping they will naturalise and give me a better show as they spread.

I agree with you, SC, there's no way I would pull up a bulb after it had flowered - where's the gratitude?
Think I've said before but I'm not a fan of tulips - too stiff and artificial looking. However, I have planted some over the years (when they've been cheap) and some are flowering now - bright red ones. They come back every year.

Well as said above - most tulips sold for cutting are not perennials.

If the bulb is an annual and not going to flower next year - why try to grow it? Theres no logic to that.

Waste of resources, not to mention the growing space. Put it in the compost.

I will agree to disagree.

https://www.dutchgrown.com/blogs/the-dut...-perennial

I couldn't bin a bulb, but then I don't cut my tulips for flowers. I admit many have leaves but no flowers but an equal amount come back each year with blooms. With bulbs, hope springs eternal, I figure every bulb might grow a flower again so it's kept (except grape hyacinths). Isn't it awfully expensive to treat tulip bulbs as a cut and throw away?

       
 
I've been playing Hunt the Tulips - here are some I found. No idea how long ago they were planted - 5 years, maybe more. They do seem to be multiplying as even I wouldn't have planted the unopened clump that closely.

As for the cost of growing them for one year only, it probably depends on  why you grow them. If its to sell the flowers, the cost of the bulb and the single tulip it produces in its lifetime has to equal or be less than the amount it would sell for in a bunch of flowers. If its to give pleasure in the garden, its not important and every extra year is a bonus.

I've not got any tulips out yet

2 tulip blooms I had to cut because they were too heavy to keep their heads up. I believe they're called Sun Lover

          

Lots of ranunculus cut this week... super exciting!