Saturday, March 29, 2008

Tulip

Tulipa commonly called Tulip is a genus of about 100 species of bulbous flowering plants in the family Liliaceae. The native range of the species include southern Europe, north Africa, and Asia from Anatolia and Iran in the east to northeast of China. The centre of assortment of the type is in the Pamir and Hindu Kush mountains and the steppes of Kazakhstan. A number of species and many mixture cultivars are grown in gardens, used as pot plants or as fresh cut flowers.

Tulips initiate from mountainous areas with moderate climates and need a period of cool dormancy. They do best in climates with long cool springs and early summers, but they are often grown as spring blooming annual plantings in furnace areas of the world. The bulbs are classically planted in late summer and fall, normally from 10 to 20 cm (4 to 8 in.) deep, depending of the type planted, in well draining soils. In parts of the world that do not have long cool springs and early summers, the bulbs are often planted up to 12 inches deep, this provides some guard from the heat of summer and tends to force the plants to stimulate one large bulb each year instead of many smaller non blooming ones. This can expand the value of the plants in warmer areas a few years but not stave off the squalor in bulb size and ultimate death of the plants.

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