Tulip care: why most tulips don't come back, and the species that do

Large hybrid tulips are best treated as annuals in most gardens. Species tulips like Tulipa tarda and T. kaufmanniana genuinely perennialize -- if you plant them deep enough and the deer don't find them first.

I've planted tulips twice on Long Island. Both times, the deer ate them before they opened — not the bulbs, the flowers. Tulips come up, and if you have deer pressure, you watch the buds swell, you check them two mornings in a row, and then one morning the stems are cut cleanly about two inches above the ground. It's disheartening in a way that takes a spring or two to get over.

That experience pushed me toward daffodils, alliums, and species tulips, which is how I learned that the "tulips don't come back" problem has a real solution — just not with the large hybrid tulips most people buy.

Hybrid tulips: the annual truth

Per Missouri Botanical Garden, "tulips have a tendency to be less showy after the first two years of growth. If you have noticed a real decline in tulip flowers, it may be better to discard them and start over." This is honest guidance that most garden centers do not volunteer.

The reason hybrid tulips decline is that the original cultivar you buy is a product of careful selection that produces one large bulb with one impressive flower. That bulb then divides into multiple smaller bulbs underground, and those smaller bulbs rarely have the energy to produce the same flower. In good years, in the right soil, you may get a second or third good season. In the typical American suburban garden with clay soil and poor drainage, you usually get one season.

The exception: Per Missouri Botanical Garden, certain cultivar groups are better candidates for perennialization. Darwin hybrid tulips including 'Apeldoorn', 'Beauty of Apeldoorn', 'Holland's Glorie', and 'Golden Apeldoorn' are listed as "excellent repeat performers." Lily-flowered types like 'Ballade', 'White Triumphator', and 'Aladdin' are also noted as perennializing better than average. These will still decline faster than species types, but they give a few more seasons than most hybrids.