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Spent compost ok for tulips?

Dirty HarryDirty Harry Posts: 1,048
in Plants
Does anyone have experience in using fresh vs. spent compost for tulip bulbs treated purely as annuals?

I have large terracotta pots I use for my dahlias in the summer and last year I filled a few of them with tulips but re-used most of the compost (multipurpose).

My thinking is if all the energy for next year's display is already in the bulb this shouldn't really make a difference providing I'm just going to be binning the bulbs and not expecting anything else from them.

Posts

  • K67K67 Posts: 2,506
    No experience but that makes sense to me.
  • Butterfly66Butterfly66 Posts: 970
    I always use the old compost from the summer bedding to do my tulips (and any other bulbs)
     If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”—Marcus Tullius Cicero
    East facing, top of a hill clay-loam, cultivated for centuries (7 years by me). Birmingham
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    Yes - they'll be fine. It's afterwards that they need some care, but if you're simply having them as annuals, it's fine.
    If they haven't had sufficient nutrition from last year, they may not be great though, or are these new bulbs? If keeping them for a subsequent year, they need food as they die down to help keep them going. 
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • Dirty HarryDirty Harry Posts: 1,048
    Sounds good to me then.

    They're new bulbs.
  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 55,117
    They'll be fine then  :)
    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
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