Tulip Question about 'Rot'?

I have a cluster of tulips planted in a small bed off my back porch. It is facing South and gets full sun all day long. Our soil is almost pure sand (parts look like beach sand) so I mixed in bag of garden soil from HomeDepot. My snapdragons are doing great but I had a few tulip bulbs get nasty rot. One was a complete gonner %26amp; had green mold in all its layers to the core. On one bulb i cut out a circular section of rot..nothing too bad( like the bruise of an apple) and placed it in a sm vase of water. Its roots dangle in the water..and the bulb sits outside it on the neck..its like a hyacinth vase. A few days later it is just starting to sprout, too. All the other tulips outside have already come out of the soil. They're several inches high now. But this one had never even sprouted while in the dirt. Can I keep it like this? Or does it need to go back in the soil?

Tulip Question about 'Rot'?
I'd put it in fresh, clean soil.


Tulips can rot from too much water.
Reply:You're welcome! Glad you got rid of the mold.


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Reply:Sounds like a problem I had where your bulbs fail to emerge above ground, or produce severely distorted shoots which then wither and die off. Then below ground, the bulbs turn grey and dry as they rot away to leave only the roots and basal plate.





The cause is the fungus Rhizoctonia tuliparum, which attacks many different types of bulbs as well as tulips.





The cure is to remove and burn infected plants and the surrounding soil. I used a hand held propane torch and with a shovel kinda spread the soil out then torch it. Don't plant other bulbs in the same spot for at least five years. I know that sounds extreme but I checked with Holland Bulb Co. and that's what they suggested I do.