FAQ #8341

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I planted tulips for the first time this year. They have bloomed beautifully. Now I need to know if I should dig them up in the fall. We do have a problem with moles and gophers that might eat them. If I do have to dig them up, how should I store them?

Moles are insectivores (insect-eating), so you should have no problem with them eating your bulbs. They may burrow around your bulbs, causing them to dry out, but if you press the soil back down, the plants should be fine.

Pocket gophers (and voles) do eat vegetation. Consider planting your bulbs in an area where you have placed 1/4-inch or 1/2-inch hardware cloth about 18 inches below the surface and up the sides to an inch above ground. This should keep the gophers from reaching your tulips. Cylindrical plastic netting placed over the entire seedling, including the bare root, reduces damage to newly planted forest seedlings significantly.

Without exclusion, if you wish your tulips to bloom again next year, you are either going to have to dig your bulbs or buy new ones next year. Unless you have a large amount of unused space in the vegetable bin of your refrigerator to store them, you should treat them as annuals and buy new bulbs. If you wish to dig them, you must wait until the foliage has died back before doing so.

There is more information on effective control strategies for pocket gophers at ICWDM.org and in other FAQs on this site. Search for the term "pocket gopher."

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Comments

John Schnautz on 02.10.08 at 07:58 PM
Doesn' the answer depend on where you live?

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