As the dark days of winter approach, it’s exciting to look forward to colourful spring bulbs and browse catalogues and websites for ideas of what to grow. Tulips are among the biggest and brightest of spring flowers and now is the time to plant them. They look great in borders and containers, filling our gardens with colour, but they can have a downside – many can fail to produce the same quality of display the following year.
This is because most highly bred tulip varieties need specific conditions to re-flower. They must be dug up and then stored in a dry, temperature-controlled environment to ensure a repeat performance as good as the first. But most of us can’t do that, and it can be expensive and wasteful to throw bulbs away after flowering and buy