Our conversation will be about when to dig up tulips after flowering, whether to do it every year. I know that there is an opinion that you can plant tulips and not touch them for several years. But it is not.
- Why you need to dig up tulips after flowering
- Terms of digging
- How to store tulip bulbs before planting
Why you need to dig up tulips after flowering
Under the conditions of our tulip flower beds( even for yearsand, if we do not choose them from the earth, then every year they will go deeper and deeper. From the depths, the shoots will be difficult to break up - as a result, the onions will simply rot in the ground, not even leaving the children. Spring flower bed will become empty. ..
There is one more reason that you have to dig out tulips. After flowering, the bulbs should form a new floral arrow in the rest period. The main requirement is that at this time they should be at a temperature not lower than 25ºС.But the deeper, the lower the soil temperature. The farther north tulips grow, the more difficult it is to provide them with the desired temperature at depth.
Thus, there are at least two reasons why it is necessary to choose tulips from the soil after flowering:
- avoid the natural penetration of the bulbs;
- provide a storage temperature of at least 25 ° C to form a full-fledged floral arrow.
This is one of the main methods of tulip cultivation.
Leaving the bulbs intact in the ground, we obviously contribute to shredding flowers, since several babies are formed next to a single bulb, which will also sprout in the spring. We will get a bunch of tulip sprouts that will interfere with each other's growth and development, they will not have enough nutrition either. As a result, the flowers in the flowerbed, we will receive every year more and more small. In addition, remaining in the ground, tulip bulbs accumulate disease, and the next year will bloom later than usual.
For the best formation of the flower arrow after flowering, immediately cut off all flower stalks, let's not mature the seed box.
I am often asked whether it is necessary to extract tulips from the ground, which were planted in special baskets for bulbous? Indeed, in this case, the bulbs will not let the bottom of the plastic form go deeper.
That's right, there will be no penetration, but without picking out bulbs from the ground, which eventually become overgrown with babies, you risk losing abundant blooms - the flowers will become smaller, their number will decrease, not grow.
By planting tulips and other bulbs in plastic bulbs for baskets, you are much easier, speed up the work of digging. All bulbs - large, medium, small - are in one place, it is impossible to miss them, leave in the ground. 
Time of digging
No one will tell you the exact date when the time comes to dig out tulips after flowering. I usually answer this question at the beginning of summer. But this is true for the Kuban, although not specifically. We can dig up tulip bulbs in the first half of June, in central Russia, a month later.
The main reference point is the condition and color of tulip leaves after flowering. That is, yellowed, withered leaves let us know that the bulb has formed. As soon as you notice that the leaves began to turn yellow, faded - it's time to remove the tulip bulbs from the soil.
There is another landmark - the color of the covering scales of the bulbs. For ripe tulip bulbs, the upper scales should be brown. 
Digging must be done very carefully. I use a pitchfork for this purpose, since a shovel can damage bulbs. Then I go through a dug-out plot with a trident hand cultivator, since it is undesirable to leave small children in the ground — small bulbs — this will just clog the future flower bed, making it not very beautiful.
It should be noted that if you grow tulips of early, medium and late flowering periods, then it is better to dig them out at different times. By postponing this work until later, until all the varieties have faded, you risk not finding the place where the early flowers grew. Sorting bulbs on varieties will also be easier. Digging a flower bed with early tulips too late increases the risk of damaging the bulbs.
↑ to contents ↑How to properly store tulip bulbs before planting
Dug out bulbs should be dried in the open air in the shade. Terms of pre-drying depends on what ground you dug them. If the ground was dry, then 2-5 days is enough, and if it is wet, the drying time increases - sometimes up to 2 weeks.
Then the tulips, or rather, the bulbs should:
- clean from the ground;
- remove cover scales, one that easily separates itself;
- to tear off the old dried up roots;
- sort bulbs by size.
Sorting into small, medium, large is required, since the depth of planting in the fall and the place of planting will depend on the size of the bulbs. 
Small and medium bulbs are not likely to bloom next year - they can be planted for growing in a more modest, but sunny place, not in plain sight. And for planting large bulbs, we will choose the most honorable place.
Sorted, peeled bulbs should be placed in a ventilated, dry, warm room - attic, shed, country house. There they will be stored until the autumn planting at a temperature of 25-28ºС.
You may be interested in the following information:
- Planting tulips in autumn
- Sub-winter planting of flowers
- Distillation of tulips
- Dahlias - when digging in autumn in
- Gladiolus - tips on care, planting, storage
