For growers in the northeast who raise tulips, late April is officially tulip season! The time of year that we can't take a day, or even a half day off for fear of missing the correct harvest window for several thousand stems. Yikes!
Last fall, the tiny team and I planted 13k tulip bulbs, of about 16 different varieties, using a no dig method by putting together an above-ground box using 2”x 8”s with rebar driven in the ground to hold them in place. In this we placed the bulbs, and an 8" layer of compost was carefully shoveled in so as not to disturb the bulbs, filling the 100'x4' box.
A layer of mulch hay was added on top to limit heaving - when bulbs or plants rise near the surface from the 'squeeze' of the freezing and thawing on sunny/freezing Winter days - and they were left to root out and rest.
Since having thousands of tulips blooming at one time would be difficult to manage and sell, us clever cut flower growers bank our tulips in a flower cooler for longer storage by harvesting tulips at the color crack stage, or when the buds are full and starting to show some color, but not close to opening.
My harvest process starts with pulling whole tulips stems up, with the bulb attached, bunching in multiples of 10, and picking into perforated plastic bags - I re-use potting soil bags and cut slits in them for air flow - and put in to the 40 degree cooler for 3+ weeks storage. Yes, completely dry, with no water! They rehydrate beautifully once the bulbs are snapped off.
In storage with the bulb on, the blooms continue to develop and get larger, and the stems get taller.
When I'm ready to fill orders, I pull bunches out of the cooler, snap the bulbs off, wrap in paper and hydrate them in buckets of water. Then they're off to market, local florists and grocery orders.
Mind-blowing tulip fact #1: Did you know that tulips keep growing taller, in your vase? As much as a few inches! They also sway and move around but it happens so slowly that its imperceptible. If you take a photo of your tulips at night and then again in the morning and you'll see what it mean! or search 'time lapse tulip video' to see their very slow dance sped up. And if you want a deep dive in to the wild historical relationship humans and tulips have had, I highly recommend the tulip chapter of The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan.
We've all had bummer experiences of buying flowers that just didn't last. The benefit of buying your flowers locally is that they are harvested freshly in season, and at the correct stage of harvest, and end up in your hands quickly, so the 'vase life' - the length of time they last for you - will be much longer. For locally grown tulips, you can expect 7 days, from bud to full glory to elegant senescence.