This year we participated in Journey North's Tulips project. In this citizen science project, people from all over the world plant the same variety of tulips, then observe and record their tulips progress. This data is shared with Journey North and is complied in maps shared on the internet. Over years of data collection, this information has been valuable as we understand climate change.
We planted Emperor Tulip bulbs, like others have done around the world. Because we live in zone 8, the protocol called for us to refrigerate our bulbs to ensure a proper wintering. We also chose to run an experiment with a second bed of bulb. These we planted November 1st. The other bed we planted January 10 (as the protocol asked for). We created journals to record observations as to when they emerged and when they bloomed. This data we reported to Journey North. It was interesting to find that the earlier planted bulbs (experiment bed) emerged first and bloomed first, but they did not look as healthy as the later planted bulbs. They were a bit twisted and stunted. The wintering of bulbs did make a difference!
