How to Plant Tulips Indoors

Jan 20, 2010 Posted

Tulips do not naturalize well in Southern Arizona, but you can plant and grow tulips beautifully indoors. Tulips are a difficult bulb to force into bloom, but forcing them indoors is the best way to grow tulips in the desert. Tulips come in a variety of bright colors, including white, yellow, pink, red, black, purple, orange, and some gorgeous and breathtaking bicolors. In the world of tulips, the circumference size of the tulip does matter. This is where the energy is stored for next year’s bloom – the bigger the bulb, the bigger the bloom. Buy quality bulbs if you want a showy centerpiece or indoor blooming garden.

Tools and Materials Needed:

Brown paper bag
Green moss
6 to 12 tulip bulbs
4 in. high Shallow dish
Stones or pebbles
Garden shears

Step 1 – Winterizing the Tulips

Place the tulips into the brown paper bag, cover them with the moss, and set them inside the fridge for six weeks. Tulips have to winterize or they will not bloom. Tulips do best in the fridge when there are no apples, grapes, apricots, or onions stored there.

Step 2 – Growing Tulips in a Dish

In Southern Arizona, you are not able to plant tulips outside because our temperatures are already too warm for them, even in January. After six weeks take them out of the fridge and place them gently into the shallow dish. This dish should have two inches of stones placed on the bottom. Plant the tulip bulbs into the stones until they are up to their shoulders and then fill the dish with water to the top of the stones. The tulips will start to grow within two weeks. Add water weekly to the dish, or more often as the water is uptaked by the plants.

Step 3 – Blooming Cycle

Each bulb typically produces one bloom with some varietals producing up to four blooms. Enjoy the tulip’s bloom period, which may last anywhere from one to three weeks, depending on the variety of tulips that you purchased. After they have bloomed, cut off the flower head with your garden shears, but do not trim the green leaves or stalk, let it die back naturally. The green stalk provides fuel for the bulb for the next growing season. Once the stalks are completely dead, cut them off too.

Step 4 – Bulb Storage

Place the tulip bulbs in a brown paper bag filled with moss. Mark your calendar to do all the steps above over again in October, November or December depending on when you want your bulbs to grace your home. Tulips can not be planted outside in Arizona because you might be able to have one bloom cycle, but more often than not, you won’t. The bulbs just wither and die in our harsh climate.

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