Is it too late for my tulips?

[dolkapots]

Last autumn I planted some tulip bulbs in planters like I do every year. These were new, everything seemed fine. They have formed foilage but no actual bud yet. Is it too late now to have any hope?

I looked at mine this morning and thry have totally wilted. I don't know if the frost has had them or whether it is just it for them.

I don't know what that means for you but I'll keep my fc!

Sometimes plants do wilt in a very hard frost, and perk up again when it's warmer. Frozen water isn't available to plants in the same way as liquid stuff! Fingers crossed that it's just a temporary reaction to the unseasonable weather.

I would expect to see some heads on most tulips by now, but it has been really cold and the tulip season is quite a long one. Like daffs, you can buy different types and they flower at different moments: there are earlies that come in March and really late ones that come in May. Can you remember the variety?

No idea of the variety, but they are pinks and purples if that gives any clue? I'm not overly bothered if they don't come up, but just wanted an idea because if they are doomed I would have pulled them up and planted something else in their place. Good to know that they have different times depending on their variety, i'll give it another month or so.

Come to think of it I have seen red tulips in gardens but not any other colours, so perhaps mine are a later variety?

There are pinks and purples in both early and late groups of many varieties, so difficult to say! I would leave it a few weeks and see.

I think red tulips are just really popular and vigorous. I have some in my garden that I have actually been trying to get rid of, and they just keep COMING BACK!! Meanwhile, all the ones that I actually want do the typical tulip thing of being brilliant for a season and then rubbish.

Ooops, posted too soon - meant to add - after flowering, you're supposed to get them out, mollycoddle them along in a nursery bed, and then replant but I CANNOT BE BOTHERED! I am now growing species varieties and the lovely native tulip sylvestris instead.

Mine are the poundshop species I really don't have the time/patience/willingness to lift bulbs and store them, they end up in the compost heap.

Oh wow I have learnt a lot here. Mine are purple and yellow.

I cannot imagine sorting through and storing them.

I found a plant pot basket thing somone gave me for Easter last year and I had thrown in the cupboard. It was bone dry and dark... The daffs had sprouted as had hyacinths.. I draged it back out and after a couple off weeks they look green and healthy ds is watering them daily before school and is hoping they will flower even the moss stuff has come
back to life:-)

It's amazing what bulbs will survive! They are like bombs of plant energy.

D's has a thing at the moment for the game plants vs zombies... So he calls them his zombie plants because they should be dead but they are not :-)

twinkle - Now they have done well thus far, maybe give them nice new compost and a bit more space. Or plant them out in a border: DS could have his own stretch of border.

Update: I have pulled back the leaves and there is a flower bud thingy at the base. They all appear to be white though? Are they coming up blind or do they get their colour as they grow up?