"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message
...
I'm a newbie here, although I've been active in r.g.edible and
r.g.roses for some time. But since there isn't a
r.g.perennials, at least on my news server, this seemed like the
best group for my question.

We have a raised bulb bed, filled with "flower mix" soil from a
local soil/gravel/bark vendor. We've had it for several years.

The problem is this. My wife planted it in tulips, all
different kinds and colors. With the exception of a parrot
tulip or two, they all now produce yellow blooms. Healthy
plants, nice blooms, just not what we planted.

Over the last two years, we've gradually replaced the tulips
with lilies. Guess what? Same thing! We now have one red lily
and the rest are all yellow. Spreading like crazy, so they must
be nice and healthy as well.

I asked a local garden "expert" about this back when it was only
the tulips, and she said that cheap tulip bulbs would do that.
I wonder what she'd say about the lilies :-).

Anyone in this group have a clue what's causing our bulbs to
change their flower colors?

Thanks in advance for any and all advice.

I think what happens is that over time the stronger bulbs survive and the
rest die. In your case, the yellow ones won the battle of natural
selection. I bought a lot of bulbs on clearance last fall and kept the
packages after planting them. To my surprise, several varieties of the
tulips were completely different colors than the pictures and descriptions
on the packaging. If you planted one color of lily and another color
appeared, then there might have been a packaging mistake. I got several
packages of Dutch iris that were suppose to be mixed colors. I planted each
package in a different location. Nearly all of them were the same color -
not a mix of colors. Again, either a packaging mistake or the mix was not
random enough to yield packages with a good distribution of colors.