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"Novice" doesn't really have a lot to do with it. :-) Most kinds of tulips tend to fade away after a few years in most people's gardens. I can usually count on 2 decent years of bloom for tulips, and after that they start petering out.
You'll almost always get blooms the first year (as long as the bulbs get the chilling hours they need, don't drown/rot, or aren't eaten by marauding squirrels, LOL). Most tulips aren't long lasting perennials for most people, though... the bulb may not replenish itself well in your garden and might not grow back to its original size, even if you leave the foliage on to "ripen" (see Sally's article last weekend on after-care for spring bulbs)... also, they produce "daughter bulbs" and get smaller in the process... so over the next few years, you may see fewer and smaller blooms from smaller bulbs, until the bulbs get so small they will no longer bloom.
There are a few "perennial" tulip varieties that tend to last longer and return more reliably from year to year. Another notable exception are the little "species" tulips (similar to wild ones), which return well and may also naturalize & multiply in your garden.
I have been gardening for 62 years, in my former house I had beautiful tulips come back year after year, now in my new place they are beautiful for one year and after that I am lucky to see one tiny bloom. Soil and care has nothing to do with it since the new house was built on land next to our old farm house. I feel managers in charge of tulips just expect us to buy new bulbs every year which is an expensive proposition
What is going on with that? My tulips come back but they are not as pretty as the year before, and each year they are a bit less so.
How is it these people that sell bulbs can give you a few years of large pretty flowers, then the flowers languish? Like the other writer said, I guess they expect us to buy new bulbs each year.
Mine also do not reproduce. Is it because they are hybrid?
Many hybrids, including hybrid tulips, are sterile and don't set viable seed. Since I think tulip seedlings can take 3 to 5 years to bloom, I'd rather buy bulbs.
This is not some big conspiracy by the bulb companies, IMO. Tulips just aren't long lived in most gardens. Daughter bulbs are successively smaller each year, and the bulbs use up a little more of themselves each time they bloom, until they're just too small to give you a show.
If you want bulbs that will return year after year and multiply, look for ones that are good "naturalizers" (will multiply on their own)... this includes many varieties of daffodils, snowdrops, squill, crocuses, species tulips, and many more... but it doesn't include most hybrid tulips.
Critter, thank you, I must have had Tulips that lasted for ever, they always were tall and beautiful from the time I planted them, no such luck here. Oh well...
Maria, have you dug in the area where they were? That might give you an idea of their fate, whether it's just the bulbs getting smaller or something else.
If tulips are in a bed that gets irrigation over the summer, that can do them in (they like it dry during their summer dormant period).
I was away last summer, my daughters watered the gardens but I kknow they did not overdue it, lol
We had a very long winter with freezing weather perhaps these particular tulips have not foilaged, so I better wait a while longer before checking the bulbs, Daffies just came to bloom
Good article/ Years ago I planted some Apricot tulips. Can't remember the full name but are still popular today. They were beautiful for a cple years then faded but bloomed and multiplied so much they were coming up through the middle of my Peonies Etc. Finally built onto the house and lost most of them I thought but lo and behold last spring here was one bunch blooming again. Still faded but not giving up.
