Even if you plant bulbs upside down, they won’t grow downward. Photo: pngfind.com, freepsdfilescom & wayfair.com
Question: I planted 40 tulip bulbs last month. Then I read you’re supposed to plant them with the pointed end up and the flat part down. I did the opposite! (It just seemed obvious to me that the point showed which direction you were supposed to plant the bulb!) I went out yesterday to dig them up and replant them the right way, but to my horror, the top (bottom?) of the first bulb I ran into was covered with roots and I didn’t dare move it for fear of damaging them. What should I do? Am I going to lose my tulips?
M. Khan
Answer: Don’t worry about it! Most bulbs have a flattened basal plate (basal meaning bottom) from which roots grow and a pointed side from which stems grow, so it makes sense to plant them with the flat end down and the pointed end facing up. But … if you plant them sideways or upside down, they’ll still grow perfectly well.
Roots will appear from the basal plate, no matter what its angle, generally shortly after planting, and, in the spring, the flower stem, which will initially start growing pointing down, will quickly change direction and grow up. It reacts negatively to gravity and whichever way gravity tries to pull it, it will stubbornly grow the other way. This is known as negative gravitropism.
At worst, your upside-down tulip bulbs might be a tad shorter than normal, but even that isn’t a given.
And the bulb will correct itself the coming year. After a tulip bulb blooms, the mother bulb produces offsets or daughter bulbs: usually a big one that will replace her and bloom next year and smaller bulbs that help her reproduce and won’t bloom for a few years. The mother bulb then dies, her job done. However, the offsets that are formed will all grow the right way up, with the basal plate to the bottom and the point towards the sky. Ain’t nature wonderful?
This information applies to pretty much any bulb or bulblike organ. And that’s especially good news for those bulbs that don’t clearly have an up side or a down side, like the lumpy tubers of anemones (Anemone blanda and A. coronaria) and winter aconites (Eranthis hiemalis). You’ll never be able to guess which side goes up, so just plant them any old way.
My mother gave me great advice as young bride: plan bulbs on their side — that way they will always find a way UP… even kids can plant bulbs without having to turn them (kindly) later :). But I see from this and other smart(er) gardeners that they bulbs are even smarter than either mum or me… they (the bulbs) get it right even without us knowing our roots from our stems 🙂
When plant large quantities of bulbs, I merely dig a trench to the appropriate depth, dump the bulbs in, and bury them. They figure it out. When I plant bearded iris or other rhizomes, I prefer to orient them properly though.
I do the same.
When I was a child “helping” with the garden, my Mother told me that if I planted the tulips upside down they would bloom in Hell. When she wasn’t looking, I’d put in a few that way so the poor souls languishing there would get to see the pretty flowers.
That’s hilarious, yet touching! Thanks for my laugh of the day.
How lovely!