Question
Hi, My name is Mira White, I live in North-East Arizona, My Uncle last fall gave me over 100 tulip bulbs, we planted them in September of last year. I spoke with my Uncle and asked if they are all the same kind of tulip bulb. He said yes. Well I have them in 4 rows about 20 feet long. The question i have is.... One area they are going big and and very larged leaved, and are budding. A little down the row they are tiny and not more then and couple inches tall, more down the rows they are bearly coming out of the ground. I am looking for what kind of fertlizer that i could use to balance this area for next year. Thanks you for your time ;)

Answer
Mira,

It is most likely not a nutritional problem, but probably caused by differences in the amount of sunshine each area get. The long flower bed probably get more sun during a day in the area where the tulips are taller, and less sun as you go down the line.

It is not uncommon to have some tulips flowering while others are barely breaking the ground. This can typically happen because a sunny area will stay several degrees warmer than a shady area, and the shady area takes weeks longer to thaw in spring.

We have a south facing strip along the house which gets reflection from the siding. the daffodils here bloom in mid march. the same daffodils are planted on the north west side of a fence and they typically do not bloom until late april. They were from the same bag.

Tulips are relatively short lived perennials. If you deadhead the tulips (e.g. cut the flower off at the top of the stem after the petals fall) and let the foliage stay unrestricted, you can probably get them to repeat next year. Tulips are very poor perennializers, however, and even in the best of conditions most tulips will not come back for any reason. Therefore most people treat them as annuals and replace them every year.

You can give it a try, but next year the show will likely be a lot less than this year.

Apply a fertilizer around the base of the tulip bulbs now and repeat when you deadhead. then repeat again over the area in fall. Use a bulb fertilizer, or simply a regular annual plant fertilizer, such as bulb booster, nutri-cote, etc.  If you treat tulips as annuals you do not need to fertilize them, but if you are trying to perennialize them, then fertilize 3 times (as described above).

In future, when re-doing your flower beds and planting bulbs, try to plant the bulbs in the sunny areas 2-3" deeper than bulbs in the areas receiving more shade. e.g. bulbs planted in the sunny area could be planted 8-10" deep and bulbs in the shady area could be planted 5-7" deep. This is the only way you can make some kind of correction for your situation, but in reality the flowers will come up and bloom only when the soil has thawed considerably.

Good luck, and enjoy the tulips.
Kenneth