Once your tulips have finished blooming in late May, you’re faced with a classic gardener’s dilemma: should you leave the bulbs in the ground or dig them up for the summer? While leaving them in the soil is easier, they tend to pull themselves deeper into the earth every year. Eventually, they’ll be so deep they won’t be able to reach the surface anymore, and they’ll just disappear. If you want your favorite varieties to thrive year after year, it’s actually better to dig them up and store them over the summer.
How to Properly Dig and Store Your Bulbs
After a long spring season, your tulip bulbs have definitely earned a little nap. But before you grab your shovel, wait until the leaves have completely withered and turned brown. This part is crucial! As the foliage dies back, all those nutrients travel down into the bulb to recharge its energy stores for next year. Once the leaves are totally dry, go ahead and trim them off. Then, carefully lift the bulbs out of the ground with a small trowel. Try to keep a bit of soil around the roots as you pull them up to avoid damaging them.
The Storage Process
Before you tuck your bulbs away in a cool spot (ideally between 40°F and 50°F), you’ll need to prep them for their summer vacation:
- Use a soft brush to clean off the dirt—never use water!
- Sort through your stash and toss any bulbs that look rotten or have been nibbled on by pests.
- Throw the “bad” bulbs in the trash, not the compost, to prevent spreading fungi or germs.
- Place the bulbs on a rack to dry out in a well-ventilated area.
- Wrap the dry bulbs individually in garden fleece or newspaper.
- Store them on a wire mesh tray or in a box filled with dry peat moss.
- Make sure the bulbs aren’t touching each other.
- Cover them with fine wire mesh to keep hungry mice away.
- Check on them every now and then to make sure they’re still in good shape.
The perfect storage spot should be cool, airy, and—most importantly—dry. If it’s too humid, your bulbs will unfortunately mold. A cool basement, a breezy garage, or even a shaded, well-ventilated garden shed usually does the trick.
When Can You Leave Them in the Ground?
This “dig and store” rule applies to most tulips, but there is one big exception: Wild Tulips (Species Tulips). These little guys actually prefer to stay in the ground. They love to naturalize, spreading out over the years to create a gorgeous carpet of flowers. Once wild tulips finish blooming, the mother bulbs produce tiny “bulblets” that eventually grow into independent, flowering bulbs all on their own.
