Tulip

Flower care guide

Tulip

The flower that tells you spring is coming, usually before the weather does. Tulips are the only cut flower that keeps growing in the vase, and they move toward the light while they do it.

In season

Late winter through spring, with some availability year round.

Also known as

Tulipa

Caring for your tulips

Cut about half an inch off the stems straight across rather than at an angle, and stand them in cold water. Tulips like their water shallow, a third of the way up the vase is plenty, and they generally do better without flower food.

They keep growing after cutting. A tulip arrangement will be visibly taller after two days, and each stem bends toward the brightest part of the room. Turn the vase a half turn each day to keep the arrangement even, or lean into the curve and let them do what they do.

If they flop dramatically in the first day, wrap the whole bunch snugly in paper up to the base of the flowers, stand them in deep cold water for an hour, then unwrap and rearrange. They come back straight.

Keep them somewhere cool and away from fruit. Tulips open wide in warmth and close again when it cools, so they will look different in the morning than they did the night before.

Tulips carry on growing after they are cut, adding as much as an inch in the vase, and they bend toward the nearest window as they go.