Sherenity,
If you do a couple of things to ensure the long life of your tulips, there is no reason why they shouldn't come back for you well past the first year. Here's what you should do:

1) Give them the environment they need: sunny, well-drained locations with some high phosphorus and potassium fertilizer to start off with (bone meal, granular fertilizers formulated for bulbs, or even coated fertilizer pellets)
2) After they have finished blooming next spring, do not remove the dying or yellowing foliage until it is absolutely dead. The bulbs are storing energy for the next year's bloom.
3) Pest patrol: squirrels and other creatures love to eat tulip bulbs, leaves and flowers. You'll have to address this by planting the bulbs under chicken wire, in cages, in fenced off areas or let your frisky Fido patrol the bulb area at all times.
4) When the bulbs have worn themselves out after several years, you'll know if it's time to replant. The foliage may come up with no blooms at all or bloom size is reduced or the foliage may not even show itself. Now it's time to replant in the fall.

My mother has had the same tulips come back for several years in NE Ohio (the cold part of Zone 5). There's no reason why you shouldn't too in your more hospitable Zone 6.

Mark Miller

To be completely honest, Sherenity, I give tulip bulbs an appropriate amount of bone meal when I first plant them and then I get lazy and never fertilize again. I checked a couple of good sources and the general suggestion is to spread bone meal around the bulbs in late fall or early spring and scratch it into the soil a bit.

If you enjoy old books, I recommend "Adventures with Hardy Bulbs" by Louise Beebe Wilder. First published in 1936, my copy is a 1998 edition put out by The Lyons Press.

Mark Miller

They will probably be beautiful! Follow the recommendations you have read here and you're golden. My tulips have been coming up big and bright for years - in fact, neighbors bring friends to see them. They will repay you many times over for the effort with bone meal and the patience to let the leaves whither. You can hide them with annuals.

The species are perenials from bulbs, the tunicate bulbs often produced on the ends of stolons and covered with glabrous to variously hairy papery coverings. Tulips are associated with Holland, both the flower and its name originated in the Ottoman Empire. The tulip is actually not a Dutch flower as many people tend to believe. It's sure that it is a bulb family.

http://www.avasflowers.com/california/

If you leave the tulip foliage to store energy after blooming (don't cut it off) and if your tulips aren't eaten to the ground by some 4-legged pest, you should have them come back for you again for several years to come.

My mother lives in USDA Hardiness Zone 4 and she's had a bunch of tulips come back for her for 5 years now. They may not be quite as big-bloomed as the first year, but they're still showy.

Which reminds me, you may wish to fertilize your tulips with a good bulb food (please follow the label directions). This will help them root well, store up energy and bloom like crazy for you. Let us know how they look in the spring.

Mark Miller, L2G Content Director