What Remains When The Tulips Are Finished Blossoming?

Tulip care involves deadheading, proper foliage care, fertilization, careful handling of bulbs, and ensuring suitable soil. After blooming, deadhead tulips by removing spent blooms and leaving foliage until it yellows to replenish the bulb’s nutrients. Annual tulips are typically treated as disposable plants, but potted tulips can be saved and encouraged to re-flower the following year.

Tulips don’t require special maintenance once their showy blooms have withered and their greenery has been removed. A little watering during dry times may be necessary. It’s important to let the leaves continue to grow after blooming, as they are busy making bulblets and storing energy. Cut down old flower stalks but leave the leaves as long as they are green. Plant other stuff in among them and clean out the tulip leaves after they turn yellow.

To encourage tulips to bloom again next year, remove the seed heads once the blooms have faded and allow the foliage to die back naturally. Over the next couple of weeks, the tulip foliage will look ragged as the stem and leaves begin to turn brown and die down. When tulips finish flowering, those leaves gather sunlight and turn it into food and energy. Once tulips have bloomed, remove the flower heads, directing all the plant’s energy to the bulb, promoting growth and the formation of new baby bulbs. Tulip leaves will renourish the bulb after the flower has finished blooming, so don’t remove the leaves until they turn brown.