I live in PA and want tulips. Can I plant them now in march andhave them bloom for this coming season?

Answer 1

Yes you can, it is called forcing, where you fool the bulbs into thinking that winter is occurring.

For most bulbs, optimal temperatures during this period range from 40º to 45ºF (typical refrigerator temperatures in the crisper - but CHECK yours). The temperatures should not exceed 48°F and should not be below 32º (don't put them in the freezer) for too long. Unfortunately for this year, you need a minimum of 10 weeks to force the bulbs, (colder temps with shorter times do not work), and about another 10 weeks until they flower. So spring this year is probably out.

However, if you start soon, you can force summer/fall blooming tulips, and get good flower production this year. Also, find out what the soil temp 15 inches down is (your nursery should have this info). If you routinely get freezes at this depth, you will need to disinter the bulbs each year. Storing them in a basement should work well.

I have been forcing my lilacs to bloom (in California) for the past 20 years. This requires icing the roots for 2 weeks most winters. Very little effort for bloomiong lilacs in Central California.

Answer 2

Not where I live in PA. The ground is frozen solid and covered with about two feet of snow. The ideal time to plant bulbs for tulips and daffodils is in the fall. They have to undergo a period of "chilling" in order to bloom properly. I don't think there's any way you can have them this season. (Ordinarily, they would be sprouting in a week or so where I live, but they'll be late this year.)

Answer 3

No. Tulips (& all bulb plants that I know of!) in PA have to be planted in the fall to give them the winter to germinate.
I live in the NW corner of PA, and we got 3 inches of snow last night...

Answer 4

Hi, Spring flowering flowers need stratification(cold period) for bloom. I would plant them in the fall before your ground freezes.


Plant dormancy

The fact that plants go through a dormant state during the winter is something we take for granted. We all know - and expect – plants to die down in the fall to protect themselves from the harsh winter weather and that – with any luck – they emerge again once spring arrives to warm up the soil. However, as is often the case when Mother Nature is involved, there is more to it than meets the eye…

Dormancy is a complex phenomenon that is present in most forms of life, including seeds, bulbs, tubers, perennials, shrubs and trees. It is generally characterized by a unique physiological and metabolic state that results in a lack of further development and growth. Basically, dormancy is a device by which organisms survive long periods of adverse conditions. By the same principle, certain mammals hibernate to avoid winter with its lack of food.

As always, unraveling the physiological processes that control seed germination, flower production, fruit set and seed production, was a long and painstaking process. Our knowledge of these processes is largely owed to horticulturists who have been studying the topic since the early 1900’s. Understanding plant dormancy and temperature requirements is – of course – of huge importance to those who professionally grow either edible or ornamental plants.

A major discovery was that that many plants require a period of low temperatures before being exposed to warmer temperatures in order to break dormancy or to flower (this process is known as stratification). A simple example of this can be found in plants that we know as “biennials”. When grown from seed, plants such as foxgloves or parsley will form a rosette of leaves at ground level the first season. It isn’t until after their first winter that they will develop elongated stems that eventually bear flowers. The same principle applies to most spring-flowering bulbs. Even though the flower is already formed in a dormant bulb, it needs low temperatures to overcome its dormancy and initiate the lengthening of its flower stem.

Here’s a little trivia for you to help you understand why studying this topic was – and is – so incredibly important. In the 1920’s, Russian scientist Trofim Lysenko subjected winter wheat seeds to extreme low temperatures so that they could be sown as a spring crop rather than as a winter crop. This greatly reduced the amount of wheat seeds lost to hungry birds in the winter, thus improving the size of the crop that could be harvested and preventing mass starvation.

Unfortunately, after this discovery Lysenko became slightly overwhelmed with his own success. Named President of the Soviet Academy of Agricultural Services in 1938, he became a Stalinist deputy for science and began persecuting colleagues who did not agree with his theories. He is believed to have been responsible for the exile, torture and death of many a talented scientist, thereby creating an environment of oppression and backwardness in Soviet science. Anyway, enough trivia for one column, let’s get back to reality.

A topic like the one we are tackling today is tricky to explain without becoming too technical. I could tell you that dormancy can be subdivided into three categories: ecodormancy-arrest, paradormancy-arrest and endodormancy-arrest, but somehow I don’t think that towards the end of the column I would have many readers left if I were to follow that tack. Suffice it to say that all three dormancy categories have one thing in common; somehow growth is prevented in situations where otherwise growth would occur. Although we are still not 100% sure what exactly controls this process, it is now commonly accepted that a blockage of cell growth occurs as a result of an interaction between the signaling pathways controlling dormancy (light, temperatures etc.) and those controlling the cell cycle.


I hope this article helped you! Sunkeeper

Answer 5

Plant your bulbs in the fall. They then can go trough their chilling and will be ready for bloom next spring. For now I would just go with the ones that are already started that you can get from your local greenhouse

Answer 6

not likely but any thing is possible if the planting area is a micro- clime warmer than your general area. Spring flowering bulbs should be planted in the fall...if you already have the bulbs..plant'em...they are not likely to store well till next fall unless you really know a lot about how to store bulbs so give it a try in a fairly protected area...good luck

Answer 7

not where i live in pa either...i live in kane...where do you live mom?