I like to force a few pots full of tulip bulbs each fall so I have something to cheer me up in January and February when my flowerbeds are buried under mounds of snow, and it feels like spring will never come again.
You can find lists of tulips that are good for forcing, but my favorites are the Triumph tulips. They come in an astounding array of colors, and they have very sturdy stems. Triumphs aren’t necessarily the most reliable outdoor perennial tulips (they tend to “disappear” after several years), so by forcing them in pots I still get to enjoy them but with a lot less work for my reward.
Forced tulips need a chilling period, so you need to have someplace to store them at 35 to 45 degrees F for 14 to 16 weeks. You can place them in an unheated garage, porch, basement, or cold frame, but I prefer to store my potted bulbs in the vegetable drawers of the refrigerator.
To plant the bulbs, simply fill a pot (containing drainage holes) with soil. The soil doesn’t have to be fancy, just something that drains well. If the bulbs don’t have good drainage, they could turn moldy and rot. Any packaged potting soil works just fine. I use 8-inch pots because I can fit 4 of them in my refrigerator’s vegetable drawers. I’m able to squeeze 8 bulbs into each pot.
Add enough soil to the pot so it’s about an inch from the top and then tuck in the bulbs. You can crowd them in there, just make sure they aren’t touching. If the bulbs have a flat side, put that toward the outside of the pot since that’s where the biggest leaf will emerge. When the bulbs are in position, sprinkle additional soil around them leaving the “snouts” of the bulbs exposed. Tamp down the soil and give the bulbs a good drink of water.
If you are storing the pots in the refrigerator, make sure to keep them away from fruit, especially apples which give off ethylene gas that can harm the bulbs. I usually need to water my pots two or three times during the chilling period. You don’t want the soil to dry out, but you don’t want it to be soggy either.
Chill them for 14 to 16 weeks. Last year I retrieved my pots from cold storage at different intervals so I could extend the blooming period. It worked well. I enjoyed blooming tulips for well over a month.
When you remove the pots from the refrigerator, place them in an area with indirect or low light and cooler temperatures for a few days. The bulbs will probably have little yellow or white shoots coming out of them. When those shoots start to green up you can move the pots to a brightly-lit location. They don’t need full sun, and the flowers will actually last longer if they aren’t baked in the sun or exposed to excessive heat.
Usually I plant different cultivars each year, but this year I decided to do Triumph tulip ‘Rembrandt’s Favorite’ again because it bloomed so beautifully for me last year:
The other Triumph tulip cultivars I’m forcing are ‘Gavota’ and ‘Grand Perfection’. Single Early tulips also make fantastic forcing tulips. I’m giving ‘Jenny’ a try.