Tulip Time
April is peak tulip time but these seasonal flowers can be a little like buses. You wait for ever for the one you want then they all come along at once.
Tulips are the most gorgeous focal flower coming in a range of colours, shapes and sizes but they join us fleetingly, arriving anywhere from the end of March through to early May . They look stunning in a vase en mass and in my opinion even better as part of a spring arrangement. Full of personality , tulips will continue growing after you cut them because their stems are highly responsive to the plant hormone auxin which causes them to elongate and grow toward light. Phototropic flowers move toward the light continually changing their position in a vase even after being cut . This growth and movement contribute to the characteristic appearance in arrangements, with stems bending and flowers turning towards light sources.
Here’s a few tips to get the best from these amazing seasonal blooms:
Recut the stems at a 45-degree angle, this ensures the stems are exposed to the maximum amount of water to rehydrate. Make sure there are no leaves under the water line, your vase should be super clean to avoid the introduction of any bacteria.
Tulips are a thirsty flower so make sure there is plenty of cool water in the vase , change every other day and recut stems as you do so.
Give them a bit of space in the vase so they don’t get squashed, overcrowding can damage the stem and shorten the vase life too.
As tulips are one of the only flowers to keep growing after being cut, choose your vase carefully – one that covers at least half the stem length is ideal to stop them drooping if they do grow overnight (this can happen!).
If they do droop, this is usually down to an air block in the stem, i.e. the water is not reaching the flower .You can try and rescue a drooped tulip by using the pin trick: this involves pushing a pin all the way through the throat of the tulip (approximately an inch from the bottom of the flower head) to release the air and recutting the stems again.
I love to see the movement of this beauties but if you like a straighter stem, you can rotate the vase to vary where the light comes from. In extreme cases, you can also try taking the tulips out of the vase and wrapping the stems quite tightly in newspaper in a cone shape so you encourage that straight shape you want. Then leave overnight in the dark and a little water and you should find the tulips have righted themselves when you unwrap the paper in the morning.
As with all cut flowers, do not place your tulips in direct sun, a south facing windowsill is deadly . Also keeping them next to a bowl of fruit , can cause cut flowers to age more rapidly and wilt prematurely
Finally, if one flower or foliage starts to die, remove it from the vase immediately as it’s thought that dying flowers release a bacteria as they wilt which can damage the others.
So if you only buy flowers a few times a year make sure you treat yourself to some tulips over the coming weeks, they won’t be around for too long and they really are too good to miss.
