Alan Titchmarsh loves to share his nifty gardening tips on social media – particularly his Instagram account @alantitchmarshmbe.
In a previous video he posted, Alan shared what to do with tulips after they flower. He captioned the video: “What to do with your tulips…”
The gardening expert said: “You’ve been asking what to do with your tulips when the flowers have fallen.
“What should you do? Should you throw them away?” You can if you want to, but Alan has shared a better way to deal with them so their blooms flower each year for the next four years – and it should only take you 15 seconds.
He said: “I’ve found the best thing to do is to dig them up if they’re in beds and borders, or, knock them out if they’re in a pot like this.
“Pull them out of the pot and you will find bulbs. Just lay these bulbs somewhere dry.
“What they often do is form one larger one and a smaller one. That larger one will have flowers next year.
“You can put them in trays if you like – seed trays in a shed or garage.” Alan shared what a “typical” bulb looks like after it’s flowered.
One of the bulbs carries the current flowers while the other one next to it will flower next year.
He continued: “You will find that every one of them has one large bulb and it’s the large one that – when the whole thing has dried off – you can separate and plant again next year.
“Then you will get a second year of flowering and then a third and a fourth if you keep doing it every year.
“The little ones you can keep as well if you want but they need to be grown on to flowering size.
“So each of these bulbs should yield you at least one flowering bulb for next year.
“Take them out, dig them out, dry them off until they have all gone brown and the top can be pulled off and these fat bulbs will be flowers next year as well.”
Speaking to Express.co.uk previously, Alan explained that if you can’t be doing with the palaver of digging them up after flowering, then pull off the foliage and leave the bulbs in the ground.
However, he claimed that the main thing to do at this time of year is to enjoy these flowers in all their glory.
