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I am in NC and i bought tulips and forgot to plant them before the frost. Beginning of Feb i decided to plant them in flower pots and placed them in the garage. Now i see all of the tulips popping up
Now what should i do? Today I decided to put the flower pot outside. Are my tulips going to die, should i water them? Help
The leaves might be tender since they are suddenly in cold weather outside, but they will need sunlight now that the leaves are growing. Water them regularly and for a couple of weeks move them in and outside of the garage night vs day if you can. If they have been in temps of 40 degrees or less for a month or more, they might still flower. Otherwise, lack of cold will not provide the flowering signal to most tulip varieties. However a few smaller, natural varieties will not need all the cold to stimulate flowering. So hope for the best. But the plants should live.
I am in NC and i bought tulips and forgot to plant them before the frost. Beginning of Feb i decided to plant them in flower pots and placed them in the garage. Now i see all of the tulips popping up
Now what should i do? Today I decided to put the flower pot outside. Are my tulips going to die, should i water them? Help
Since the potted bulbs are all producing early leaves now hopefully the bulbs got enough of the chill they needed in the garage for a couple of weeks and may still bloom for you this spring.
Also, what kind of daily/nightly temperatures are you getting outdoors now? That's extremely important but you didn't say what your temperatures are.
Had you originally been planning on leaving the bulbs in the pots permanently, or had you originally been planning on planting the bulbs directly into the ground?
If you were planning on leaving the bulbs in pots permanently then do what luv4horses said to do. Make sure they get plenty of sunshine in the days. And yes of course when they are in pots they definitely need to be watered when the soil starts to get dry. The soil in pots should be kept evenly damp at all times, not wet and not dry, just somewhere in between.
Another option instead of bringing the potted plants in and out every day while they're adjusting to daily climate conditions, is you could dig pot-sized holes in the ground and sink the pots directly into the ground for now and through spring until they have all stopped blooming. When they've stopped blooming you could leave them there or else lift the pots out of the ground and put them in a part sun/part shade location. Or not.
However ....... if you had originally been planning on putting them directly into the ground then you can and should do that right away now since they already have leaves sprouting, and then just leave them alone while the bulb's roots and leaves adjust to daily changing temperatures. They should start producing blooms in mid spring approximately. The bulbs and their roots directly in the ground will be better insulated so they will be warmer and safer from freezing and constantly changing temperatures than bulbs in plant pots will be. Potted plants always require more care and attention than plants in the ground do.
Unless you are in the Western NC mountains, the tulips will probably not do well next year. It doesn't get cold enough here for them.
Tulips need a period of 3 months where the soil temperature drops below 55 degrees. Sure it does in North Carolina.. So it DOES get cold enough with the right patterns...
In Greensboro, most of December the soil was under 55°, it did pop warmer but all of January and February pretty much under.
Even in southern part of state it does get cold enough for Tulips but sure is close. The winter pattern this year was above normal, so those pops in the 60s while didnt last long, they may affect the Tulips... But if the winter pattern is a colder one, then it's ok for sure.
The leaves might be tender since they are suddenly in cold weather outside, but they will need sunlight now that the leaves are growing. Water them regularly and for a couple of weeks move them in and outside of the garage night vs day if you can. If they have been in temps of 40 degrees or less for a month or more, they might still flower. Otherwise, lack of cold will not provide the flowering signal to most tulip varieties. However a few smaller, natural varieties will not need all the cold to stimulate flowering. So hope for the best. But the plants should live.
Tulips need a period of 3 months where the soil temperature drops below 55 degrees. Sure it does in North Carolina.. So it DOES get cold enough with the right patterns...
Here's what the folks at NC State have to say about them.... https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/tulipa/
"In most cases, tulip performance declines substantially starting with the second year. Many growers prefer growing tulips, particularly hybrids, as annuals."
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