Tulip Test Gardens

Who's Planting?

Gardeners are gathering their tools and heading out to the schoolyard this fall to participate in this big experiment. Come and share the excitement and learn more about them.

  • Tacoma, WA: We recorded the air temperature at 49.5 degrees F and the soil temperature at 64 degrees F. We then wondered why the soil was warmer than the air. We have a lots of questions.
  • Greenville, ME: After a snowstorm that dropped 4 inches of snow on our tulip garden, the sun came out and the temperature warmed up to 50 degrees. We planted 32 of our bulbs this afternoon under a warm sun. The remainder of our bulbs will be planted in other sites.
  • Alton, NH: New Hampshire experienced an extremely warm fall this year and this allowed us the luxury of planting late in the season. The fifth grade G&T class was very excited to be outside planting their tulip bulbs, and our principal was glad to have flowers added to our schools entrance. We can't wait till spring!
  • Midland, MI: We just planted 100 tulips about an hour ago. We have our "official" plot as well as two microclimate plots. The microclimate experiments will be very interesting in the spring. One microclimate plot is in a raised bed near a south facing brick wall, and the other is next to a north facing brick wall. The beds are about 50 feet apart. I'm betting there will be at least a 3 week spread in bloom dates between the 2 microclimates. Students will be measuring ground temperatures from now till spring.
  • St. Hubert, PQ: This year, each grade 6 student planted 2 Red Emperor Tulips in the sunniest spot of our outdoor classroom. Many of the students put dog hair and cat hair, to deter squirrels from digging the bulbs up. We planted 56 in all.
  • St. Louis, MO: We planted sixty bulbs-thirty the Journey North way and thirty the way of each student's choice. Because of all the rain St. Louis has had (in October), the soil was nice and soft. The bulbs were a lot easier to plant than last year's bulbs!
  • Whitefish, MT: Our first grade class planted the tulips about a week later than in the past two years. The Montana weather has been very wet and cold this fall so it delayed our planting project. The children did not recognize the tulip bulbs when they first saw them but recognized the flower. The students compared the tulip bulb to an onion so we opened an onion bulb and found that they were very similar in structure.


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