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emmdavies
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Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2013 4:54 pm
Location: Eastern NC (zone 8)

Tulip?

I live in an townhome styled apartment with a brick wall-ed patio and hedges on either side. I looked over one of the walls the other day and noticed this plant growing. It looks like a tulip to me...and it was not purposefully planted by the management.

My roommate told me I should try to transplant it into a pot so we can have it on our patio.

So, two questions.
1) Is it a tulip?
2) Can I move it into a pot?

Image

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rainbowgardener
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Location: TN/GA 7b

Yup, it is a tulip.

It will be very difficult to move at this point with out disrupting it so that it doesn't bloom or even killing it. The tulip bulb is quite deep and trying to dig down to it, it is easy to break the underground stem. If you try dig a little ways away from the plant and be sure you get under the bulb to bring it up, with dirt around it.

To put it in a pot, it has to be buried as deep as it was before.

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emmdavies
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Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2013 4:54 pm
Location: Eastern NC (zone 8)

Hm I see. Maybe I will just leave it be then.
I would like to have it but I don't know how my apartment will feel about me digging in the ground hahaha.

purpleinopp
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The do make great potted patio decorations, at least temporarily in spring, no doubt. Other neighbors may enjoy looking at also, remembering it from last year. If there's so much shade that it never blooms, you would be doing it a favor by moving it to a more sunny spot somewhere to try again next spring.

Tulips are easy to find in stores this time of year. Both in pots, just about to bloom, and bulbs in packages, "just add dirt."

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

That's true that they're easy to find (especially with Passover and Easter being early this year). My inlaws always get small potted flowering spring bulbs for my girls, and we plant them in the garden after they are done. Some come back, some don't, some go crazy and naturalize. :lol:

In the fall, you can buy bulbs and plant them in pots, then leave them in a protected place, then bring them inside in spring for earlier show, or let them grow outside when they are ready. I usually plant a bunch and leave them in the unheated garage (but outside under a deck, porch, up against the building, etc. work too) until they start to grow (which would be around now or a little earlier) but I didn't get around to doing that this year.



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