Yellow tulips took over

[Janet Macunovich 32]

From our email:

Hello.  I hope you can advise me. Over the years I have planted tulips of all colours, but for the last two year my tulips  are all yellow. So far this year I have only 4 multi-colour and one red. Have you heard of this happening to any of your gardeners? Is this something to do with the soil or a gene factor? While I like yellow tulips, over 3 hundred and counting is a little overwhelming. Regards! - E.W. -

[Janet Macunovich 32]

It does happen and although we've never done a scientifically sound analysis we're pretty sure it's a gene thing.

 

That is, some tulips are more able to perennialize because they are better able to complete all the requisite growth stages to live and bloom another year. It's not truly a hardiness issue, in that many tulips can survive winter cold yet not all can rest and develop a flowering bulb during summer. They might be intolerant of the prevailing soil moisture or light levels or other conditions are not just so. Tulips that don't perennialize well don't necessarily die; they become foliage-only.

 

 'Yellow Emperor' is among those that perennialize well. Whatever tulip 'Yellow Emperor' got its genes from was probably involved in developing the gold forms of Darwin tulip and yellow Greigii tulips that also perennialize well. Your other tulips may still be there as leaf-only. If identified (at this point their only identifier may be "probably not yellow") and transplanted to some other better place they might return to flowering form in a year or two.

 

Good luck sorting them out in the garden. We have tried it, and tried to get rid of the yellows so we could display other color schemes. Ha. When a plant is so well suited to a site every little bulblet we miss lives on to bulk up so that down the road we're "back in the yellow."

 

For more,  check what we've written about perennializing tulips, in Tulips at GardenAtoZ.org.