My 3 Monsters: Potted Tulip Bulbs

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3.22.2012

Potted Tulip Bulbs

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of iBulb for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

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I don't know if there is anything more beautiful and spring-like than tulips.  One of my most favorite things in the world is when I walk into Trader Joes in March or April and see all the tulips and daffodils right by the front door, looking all cheerful and just begging to come home with me.  Actually, almost anytime of year you can buy forced tulip bulbs and they're always lovely.  My husband usually buy  me potted tulips for Valentines day.  I think it is so much more romantic than traditional red roses because my beautiful tulips last for weeks.  And every time I look at them I think, "Aaahhh!  My husband is the best."  I wonder if he buys the tulips on purpose, knowing that will happen, or if it's just a happy accident when he picks up the pot at the grocery store on his way home from work.  Hmmmm.  Best not to dwell on that.  The point is, tulips make a great gift.  A gift that keeps on giving, if you will.  And, hello!  Mother's day is right around the corner . . .

I just got some tulip bulbs for Easter and re-potted them into my favorite white ceramic soup tureen.  {Because, let's be honest, when I make soup I hardly ever want to dirty up an extra dish just to set a fancy table for my  . . .  three monsters.  But the tureen is lovely and begs to be used for something.} I picked a couple of pots of tulips at my local grocery store for about $3 a pot.  There were 3 bulbs in each pot.  If your store is like mine, they'll have the big, beautiful, already blooming pots right up front for about twice the price.  Those are great if you want instant gratification, but I'm hoping to have a few blooms for Easter.  Plus, I'm cheap so I looked further to find the smaller, non-bloomers.  THEN I looked for the smallest ones I could find so that they'd still have lots of growing to do once I got them home.  

It's pretty easy to repot them, too.  I decided {after a quick Google search} to plant mine in gravel.  Just fill up your container with some clean gravel until it's at least 2-3" deep.  Then, gently pull your tulips out of their plastic pots and very carefully separate the bulbs.  Try to keep the roots in tact as much as possible and remove as much of the soil as you can.  Set the bulbs on top of the gravel, pushing a few rocks aside to make room for the roots.  Add a little extra gravel around each bulb to keep it standing upright, but don't bury the bulb. 

Once you have them all "planted" in the gravel {a 5" pot will hold 4-5 bulbs}, pour in some water.  You want enough water to cover all the roots, but you don't want the bulbs themselves sitting in the water, if that makes sense.    Once I had added water and could see it down in between the rocks, I carefully re-situated a few of the bulbs higher up in the rock bed without moving the roots too much.  All that's left to do now is make sure the water level is always high enough {the water is the only thing feeding the bulbs now} and wait!  The thing is, they look really great as is.  The flowers will just be a bonus when they arrive.  What do you think?!

I think it makes for a great little Easter vignette here next to my front door under the picture my mom cross-stitched for me.

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Many thanks to iBulb for their fantastic planting ideas.  iBulb is the flowering initiative from Anthos, Holland’s Royal Trade Association for Nursery Stock and Flower Bulbs. This foundation was set up in January 2012 to focus on the financing and implementation of three activities that are important for the Dutch flower bulb sector: promotion, technical research and market access. iBulb supports 85 Dutch companies in the dry sales and forcing business, which together represent more than 90% of Holland’s flower bulb business. 

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2 comments:

  1. Rocks huh? Interesting. I can't wait to see how they turn out. Maybe I can use this next spring (being Sept/Oct) in Chile....

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  2. BTW: That crossstitch is Ah---mazing! Holy Cow! Can I get on her Christmas list for next year?
    The grouping is perfect! It put me into the mood for Easter decor. Now if I can just get my floors mopped, I'll pull out my stuff.
    Thanks for the motivation!

    ReplyDelete

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