How to Care for Gold Tulip ‘strong Gold’
‘Strong Gold’ tulips are flowering members of the lily family and are some of the most widely planted ornamental plants in the world. Their large, showy cup-shaped flowers have for centuries been associated with beauty and elegance. These factories were also at the heart of what is often considered the first speculative bubble in history, when in the mid-17th century the “Tulip Mania” enveloped the Netherlands. It was the frenzy of the market that caused the price of tulip bulbs to skyrocket to the point where they were used as currency. Today, the Netherlands is still famous for its huge and colorful tulip fields. The Skagit Valley in Washington state is another location famous for growing tulips.
Basic Care Guide
Water
Tulips have low water requirements. Whether they are grown in flower pots or in the garden, watering them once after planting is usually enough. During the flowering period, potted tulips need to be watered regularly to maintain soil moisture and prevent drying. After the flowering period ends, continue to keep the soil moist until the leaves wither.
The soil in a small pot dries out more easily, so it needs to be watered more often, but water accumulation should be avoided. Rainwater will be sufficient for garden tulips unless the weather is too dry, when additional watering may be required.
Fertilizer
Tulips are often used as disposable bulbs, discarded after bloom, or bulbs dug up in the summer and stored, so no additional fertilizer is needed. If the soil is of poor quality, mix a little balanced fertilizer or bone meal into the soil when planting the bulbs.
sunlight
Tulips love a location with good sun. Whether grown in pots or in the garden, tulips need to be exposed to the sun for at least 7 hours a day to have beautiful flowers. Tulips do not need shade.
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Timely pruning of dried flowers can avoid excessive consumption of nutrients and energy during the fruit bearing period, thus preserving the nutrients in the bulbs, prolonging the blooming time of any other flowers, and increasing strengthen the vitality of the tree.
If you want to get seeds from tulips, wait for the pods to dry and crack open after the flowers wilt. Cut off the scab at the base after collecting the seeds. In general, each tulip bulb is planted only once in a lifetime. After the flowering period, the tubers can be dug out and removed along with the withered leaves.
Advanced Care Guide
Temperature
Most hybrid tulip varieties are cold tolerant. When the air temperature drops below 5℃ for 3 to 4 weeks, it really promotes flower bud differentiation and improves the flowering rate of tulip bulbs. In addition, tulips do not require much water, so you should only water once when planting. In general, water accumulation should be avoided as it can cause tulip bulbs to rot. When storing tulip bulbs, make sure the surrounding air is as dry as possible to prevent rotting.
Land
Tulips prefer alkaline, well-drained soil. They will also grow well on nutrient-poor sandy soils but not on clay soils, which can affect the growth of tulip bulbs. Adding coarse sand and humus to the clay will increase air permeability and allow good drainage, providing optimal growing conditions for tulips ‘Strong Gold’. For acidic soils, adding lime can raise the pH of the soil – this better for tulips because they are adapted to grow in soils with a pH between 6 and 7.
Breeding, Cultivating, Harvesting
Small bulbs usually form around tulip bulbs and they can also be collected for planting. In late winter or early spring, take the tulip bulbs you have stored and remove the small bulbs from the plant. Plant them in prepared pots of soil. Make sure the distance between each bulb is three times the diameter of the small bulbs.
Then, cover the tubers with soil 3 cm thick. Finally, place the flower pot in a shady place, keeping the soil moist. After a year, many bulbs can be planted together in the same flower pot with a little fertilizer mixed with the soil. After about 2 to 3 years, they will grow to a size suitable for flowering.
Common Pests & Diseases
Petal blight
Petal blight, sometimes called flower blight, is a fungal disease that affects only the blooms of certain ornamental flowering plants. As the infection progresses, it destroys the flower, but it never damages the vegetative or green parts of the plant.
When flowers are infected, the symptoms look similar to Botrytis blight, but Botrytis also infects dead or dormant plant tissues.
The disease was first detected in Japanese plants in 1919 and in the United States in the late 1930s. It is now also found in New Zealand, Australia and parts of Europe. Unfortunately, no plant is highly resistant to petal blight, but certain cultivars are more susceptible to infection than others, especially double-flowered species.
The rate of leaf blight infection is high when the temperature is from mild to warm (optimal temperature is 15 to 21 ℃) and the weather is foggy or rainy.
Overall, petal blight is a cosmetic problem that damages flowers. The disease does not harm the long-term health of the plant.
Underwatering
Watering plants under water is one of the fastest ways to kill them. This is something most gardeners are well aware of. Unfortunately, knowing exactly how much water a plant needs can be difficult, especially considering that underwatering and overwatering cause similar symptoms in plants.
Therefore, it is important to be cautious and attentive to the unique needs of each plant.
Aged yellow and dry
No matter what kind of tree it is, where it is planted, at some point, it will start to yellow and dry out. This is a natural, inevitable process that occurs once the plant has completed all the steps in its life cycle.
Annual plants undergo this process at the end of a growing season. Perennials live for years, if not tens or hundreds of years, but will still show these symptoms eventually.
Brown spot
Discolored spots on the foliage of trees are one of the most common disease problems people observe. These spots are caused by fungal and bacterial diseases, with most infections involving fungal pathogens.
Brown spot can occur on all types of houseplants, flowering ornamentals, vegetable and leafy plants, bushes and shrubs. No plant is resistant to it and the problem is made worse in warm and humid environments. It can occur at any point in the life stage as long as leaves are present.
Small brown spots appear on the foliage and enlarge as the disease progresses. In severe cases, the plant or tree is weakened as the lesions disrupt photosynthesis or cause leaf drop.
