Montana Tulipmania
 Tulips
are the most popular flowers in the world if one goes by the
number of bulbs sold each year. They put on a dramatic
floral display and when in bloom are admired by just about
everybody. Tulips are easy to grow, almost pest-free, can
last for years in Montana with little care, can be grown in
the house as well as the garden, and, with careful planning
(picking early, mid and late blooming varieties), put on a
floral display that lasts for a long time.
The tulip is in a taxonomic category that features at least
100 species of flowering plants belonging to the family
Liliaceae and genus Tulipa. They are native to the Middle
East from Turkey and Iran (where the flower is suggested on
that nation’s flag), eastward to northern China. The center
of diversity of the genus is the Hindu Kush Mountains of
central Asia and the grass-covered plains of Kazakhstan,
northeast of the Caspian Sea.
Tulips are perennial bulbous plants growing from four to 27
inches tall, with a small number of waxy-textured green
leaves and large, brilliantly colored flowers. They prefer
colder climes, making tulips ideal for Montana gardens.
History. Widely available at modest prices today, tulips
have long been closely associated with the Netherlands.
However, the tulip is not a native Dutch flower. Like many
other western European products, including the potato and
tobacco, tulips came to Holland from another part of the
world.
It is unclear who first brought the flower to northwestern
Europe. The most widely accepted story involves a man named
Oghier Ghislain de Busbecq, the ambassador sent by the
Austrian Emperor Ferdinand I in 1554 to Suleyman the
Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire. Around 1556, Busbecq saw
tulips growing in gardens at Constantinople. Horticultural
historians believe the Turks had been cultivating tulips as
early as AD 1000.
Tulip cultivation in the United Provinces (today called the
Netherlands) started around 1593, when Charles de L’Ecluse
(known as Clusius) first bred tulips able to tolerate the
harsher climatic conditions of the Low Countries from bulbs
sent to him from Turkey. Chiefly responsible for the spread
of tulip bulbs in the late sixteenth century, Clusius was
the author of the first major work on the flower, published
in 1592.
 His
fondness for tulips soon spread to other floral lovers.
While occupying a faculty chair at the University of Leiden,
Clusius planted both a teaching garden and his own private
plot with tulip bulbs. In 1598, however, Clusius suffered
thefts from his garden, with over 100 bulbs stolen in a
single raid. Before long, early enthusiasm for the newly
introduced flowers triggered a speculative frenzy.
The early popularity of tulips in Holland reached its zenith
in the years 1636-37. Around this time, the practice of
tulip speculation, pertaining only to highly prized and
therefore expensive varieties of the flower, emerged.
Because flower-growers had to cultivate the bulbs and would
not sell them until they were ready to be planted, growers
began offering promissory notes guaranteeing the future
delivery of tulip bulbs. Buyers of these pieces of paper
resold the notes to other speculators at marked-up prices.
In this way, promissory notes changed hands from buyer to
buyer until a tulip was ready for delivery.
 The
key to financial success in this shaky endeavor was
reselling notes before a tulip could be delivered; the
unlucky gambler was the person who could no longer resell
the promissory note because he now owned the actual bulb.
This trade in the future promise of highly prized tulips
became known as tulpenwindhandel, literally translated as
“tulip wind trade,” because transactions involved little
more than air.
Dutch citizens, angry at such financial corruption of the
flower market, voiced their highly charged opinions on the
matter in privately printed pamphlets. The Dutch government
eventually ended the era of rampant tulip speculation by
enforcing strict economic controls beginning in late 1637.
Growing Tulips. The flower cannot be cultivated successfully
in the open in tropical climates, as tulips require a cold
weather season to grow prolifically. Montana provides ideal
growing conditions for the cultivation of this showy flower.
Tulips can be grown either through offsets or from seed.
Being genetic clones of the parent plant, offsets are the
only way to enlarge the stock of a horticulturally derived
variety of tulip (known as cultivars). By contrast, the
mixing of genes between parent tulips is very unpredictable.
Consequently, a tulip grown from seed will usually bear only
a passing resemblance to the flower from which the seeds
were taken. This practice does make for great potential in
breeding new tulip flowers. However, tulip growers need to
be patient. Offsets often take at least a year to grow to
sufficient size to flower, and a tulip grown from seed will
not flower for at least five years after planting.
October is an ideal month for planting tulip beds in
Montana, but any time before the ground freezes will do.
Work the ground to a depth of at least a foot before
planting. If your soil is quite sandy (which is something
you definitely need to grow perfect tulips), be sure to work
in generous amounts of compost and peat moss. Bonemeal and
wood ashes are also ideal plant foods. Use two cupfuls of
each for every two dozen bulbs.
 The
depth of planting depends on soil conditions. Generally,
four to five inches from the top of a bulb is the advised
planting depth. In lighter soils, it may be desirable to
plant two inches deeper. As a rule of thumb, the depth that
tulips should be planted is approximately three times the
length of the bulb.
Plant the flattened base of the bulb down, with the tip
pointing upward. After planting, water thoroughly to settle
the soil around and above the bulbs. In Montana, it’s best
to mulch after the first frost. The mulch may be straw,
grass clippings, leaves or pine boughs. Remove the cover
early in the spring.
Should you want to replant old tulip bulbs, dig them up
after the foliage has turned yellow and died. Make sure to
dig a wide hole, so you do not slice into the bulb itself.
It is best to replant bulbs right away into their new
location. If you are planting other bedding plants among
tulips, it is wise to plant them sooner rather than later so
as not to damage tulip bulbs with a trowel.
Tulip festivals are held in the Netherlands and in North
America (think Holland, Michigan) in the springtime. Tulips
are also popular in Australia, as demonstrated by the fact
that several festivals are held in that country during
September and October in the Southern Hemisphere’s spring.
It is difficult to think of a spring garden without
visualizing the colorful dancing heads of the tulip. With
their wide range of color, form and size, the tulip
challenges a gardener to use her or his ingenuity in
creating new designs and effects in garden arrangements.
Enjoy and take comfort in knowing you are contributing to
the beauty of the natural world.
Gardening with tulips takes one’s mind off, at least
temporarily, such unpleasant matters as never-ending war in
the Middle East, improvised explosive devices, a root canal,
the Internal Revenue Service, less-than-honest politicians
and trying to determine who is not running for President of
the United States.
|
