Forcing tulips at home

The most famous bulbous among ornamental plants are tulips. They are associated with the first spring warm days. Numerous varieties of these beautiful and unpretentious flowers, having various colors, shapes, sizes, decorate garden plots from early spring until the onset of summer.

But such beauty can be admired almost every season, growing these flowers at home with the help of distillation. Tulips are among the best forcing ornamental plants.

Technology for forcing tulips at home

Distillation is a special method of growing when artificial conditions are created for the development and flowering of plants. Thus, you can get beautiful fresh flowers at any time of the year.
In the climate of the middle strip in winter, bulbous, like all other plants, adapted to the cold season, remain at rest. But these are only external signs. Complex preparatory processes for the formation of future plants take place.

By creating certain conditions for the bulbs, you can bring them out of dormancy to activate growth, flowering. Therefore, it is quite possible to grow beautiful tulips in greenhouse conditions for the New Year, Christmas, March 8 and other holidays.

In nature, the flowering of tulips occurs after winter. In the cold season, in bulbs under the influence of low temperatures, substances are formed that are important for the full growth of plants and the formation of beautiful buds. Therefore, a necessary step in the distillation is keeping the bulbs in conditions with a low temperature regime for enough time. Depending on the variety, its duration is 16-22 weeks.

The main stages of the entire distillation cycle:

• dug bulbs before planting are stored in suitable conditions;
• during periods of rooting, germination, the bulbs planted in the ground are in a room with a low temperature (+ 5 ... +9 ° C);
• distillation - continues at room temperature and in good light until flowering.

Selection of bulbs for distillation

To get strong, healthy plants with beautiful buds, you need to properly prepare the planting material for distillation in advance. Begin this process when they are still in the ground. After flowering, cut off the ground parts of plants, leaving 2-3 healthy leaves. Care for them continues until the leaves wither (around the beginning of July) - this allows the bulbs to grow and gain strength.

Dug bulbs are dried, cleaned, removing dry tops, sorted. The strongest and fairly large specimens (with a diameter of 30-40 mm) are selected for distillation. They should not have traces of rot, damaged areas. Proper storage of the selected planting material is required.

Popular varieties of tulips for distillation

They approach the New Year with minimal cooling periods: Triumph species, early flowering simple and terry, they are also suitable for the February holidays (11-15 weeks).

But you can also use medium-flowering: lilac, parrots (15-16). To March add: terry late, Darwin hybrids (16-19). May 1, you can get any of the above varieties (up to 22 weeks).

Some popular varieties of tulips for a particular holiday:

The timing of planting tulip bulbs for distillation

The time for planting for distillation is chosen taking into account the biological characteristics of these plants. The exact landing date can be calculated on the basis of two main periods:

• From the beginning of planting, the average length of time until the plants take root in a dark place at low temperature is about 16-22 weeks, depending on the variety of tulips.
• Then, the sprouted plants are kept under conditions at room temperature and moderate light already before flowering. This period is 3-4 weeks.

By adding up the length of these periods, you can accurately calculate the landing time.

So you can get blooming tulips by a certain date.

Soil and planting capacity

Prepare any breathable, moisture-resistant, neutral soil. Acidic soils are necessarily treated with liming.

Suitable for soil:

• a mixture of sand and peat;
• clean river sand;
• peat;
• a mixture of sand and garden soil;
• vermiculitis;
• perlite.

The optimal is considered a nutrient substrate from the mixture:

• garden land;
• compost or rotted manure;
• river sand;
• with the addition of wood ash.

As containers choose clay pots or wooden boxes. Then the most favorable conditions for plant roots will be created.

Preparing planting material

Bulbs are prepared even when they grow in the open ground. These plants need additional care, providing enrichment with useful substances. Be sure to carry out decapitation - removal of the peduncle.

The rudiments of future leaves, stems, and buds form by mid-August. To speed up these processes (when it is required to grow flowers in late autumn or early winter), two methods are used:

• Agrotechnical. After decapitation of flowers, tulips are grown under a film. This allows you to accelerate the formation of the rudiments of all organs of the plant by 2-3 weeks.
• Early digging of bulbs. Such planting material is kept at a temperature of +35 ° C a week to accelerate the formation of future organs. Then stored until the landing on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. During this time, the development of leaf primordia is delayed, and the organs of flowers are given the opportunity for a better formation.

Landing stages

Step-by-step instruction:

• Prepared nutrient substrate is poured into the container for planting in 2/3 of the volume and slightly compacted.
• The selected bulbs are again selected, exempted from brown scales (because it can interfere with the proper growth of the roots), treated with special antifungal agents.
• Thanks to the forces accumulated during storage in the bulbs, they do not require a lot of space in the containers. They are planted at a distance of about 1 cm from each other. Up to 350 flowers can be planted per square meter.
• Soil is added from above to the height of the bulbs, the top layer of which should not completely cover their tops.
• Planted plants are watered and, if necessary, if the soil sags, add more.

Follow-up care

In the future, you need to create suitable conditions for the full development of tulips:

• The containers are placed in conditions where air with a humidity of 75-80% and a temperature of + 5 ... +6 ° C.
• 3-4 weeks before the planned flowering, plants are transferred to conditions with room temperature (+ 15 ... +18 ° C) and good lighting. Additionally, it is recommended to use phytolamps to increase daylight hours by 3-5 hours.
• Water the plants as the soil dries.
• Fertilizing is done with ammonium nitrate containing nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers.
• After the appearance of the buds, it is recommended to lower the air temperature by 3-5 degrees in order to prolong flowering.

Hydroponic distillation

This method is characterized in that a nutrient fluid is used instead of soil.

Chilled bulbs (10-14 weeks) are placed vertically in hydraulic pallets, where a special solution is located below. They are kept in a cold room (not less than +5 ° C, not more than +9 ° C) for two to three weeks. If the root system develops very quickly, reduce to + 2 ... +3 ° C.

When the roots grow by about 4 cm, and the sprouts grow by 6 cm, they transfer to heat (not more than +17 ° C, humidity 80%). As a rule, such conditions are maintained in special greenhouses.

Cutting flowers to bouquets and storing them

Cut tulips for bouquets at the base, with all the leaves, when the buds have not yet fully opened. It is best in the morning, before watering, placing immediately in cool conditions. If the bulbs are no longer used, then you can pull out with them and clean them of scales - this will allow to lengthen the stems.

There are two ways to store cut tulips:

• Dry. Wrapped in paper (up to 50 pcs), in the refrigerator, stored for up to 2 weeks. Before making bouquets, they are placed in water, updating the sections of the stems.
• In water. Store for a day. If with snow, stored in a dark room for about 15-17 days.

Storage and growing of bulbs after distillation

Some gardeners believe that these bulbs are no longer suitable. But this applies only to those tulips that were grown hydroponically (in water).

In other cases, you can restore them using one of the growing methods:

• In undersized varieties, after cutting the flowers, the leaves are cut. Bulbs are kept in the ground for 3 weeks and then dug up.
• In varieties with long peduncles, leaves are left and continue to care for plants until they are completely yellowed. And then cut off the tops and dig out the bulbs. In this way, quite large specimens are obtained, and children also grow.

After they are dried for 2 weeks in warmth, and then stored in cool conditions until the next landing in the ground.

It is inappropriate to preserve the bulbs after an early distillation. For such plants to bloom again, they will need to be grown for more than one year, so that they are strong enough for flowering.

Mr. Summer resident warns: mistakes made during forcing

The reasons for getting low-quality plants may be incorrect actions:

• Planting material of poor quality or did not pass all the necessary preparatory stages.
• Sudden changes in temperature during cultivation and storage.
• Recycling of soil in which putrefactive bacteria appeared.
• Inadequate moisture or drying out of the soil during the growing period.
• Too long cooling time of the planting material or its lack.
• Violation of the ventilation of the room where the flowers were grown.

If you follow all the recommendations for the forcing of tulips, then you can avoid the appearance of defects.

Watch the video: Forcing Tulips to bloom inside (May 2024).