This is the 2022 invitation that was left sticking out of every front mailbox on the street and was posted on our Facebook page. If you live on the street and were not aware of this year's block party, we're sorry. We look forward to welcoming you to our next event.
Click on the title above to see the Global TV video on Tulip Street.
As our tulips start to fade over the next few weeks, here's some low maintenance tips for convincing them to rebloom in 2014.
1. Deadhead: A tulip's first choice for propagating itself is to produce seed. All the energy goes into the seed pod leaving the bulbs below with less food. The way to force the tulip to charge the bulbs is to deadhead. Once the petals drop off, simply cut off the seed pod and the tulip will switch to plan b, recharging the bulbs. The video link below demonstrates how to deadhead (it's easy to do, no gardening skills required!)
Click on the title above to see Tulip Street on CBC.
Watch CTV 5 o'clock news for May 3, 2013: http://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/dartmouth-s-flower-lined-tulip-street-in-full-bloom-1.1266209
or read about us in the Coast May 2, 2013: http://www.thecoast.ca/halifax/my-neighbours-and-i-planted-over-10000-tulips/Content?oid=3859588
With the first few tulips starting to bloom, the big question is what's next? So far we've seen one of our early variety tulips burst into bloom, Pirand Emperor Tulips, but we ordered four other kinds of early blooming Emperor Tulips. This coming week, we should hopefully start to see Yellow, Orange, White and Pink Emperors too. After the Emperors, there will be a big splash of variety. We ordered over a dozen different types of middle season tulips and they're scattered up and down the street. The middle season varieties should bloom together.
With tulips popping up out of the ground up and down Tulip Street the big question is when will the blooms show? Last year, the early varieties in our test bed bloomed in early April, but we had, had a much milder Spring and a lot less snow. Our best guess is that our early varieties will flower a little later this year, sometime around the end of April or early May. May will be the most colourful month with our early and mid-season varieties overlapping for a week or two before the late season varieties bloom to close out the season. With any luck, we'll have tulips for 1.5 - 2 months.
