No spring is complete without a display of beautiful, if frivolous, tulips. I can understand why people in the 17th century Netherlands lost their minds over these flowers.
While most spring bulbs can be planted in early fall, November is the best month to plant tulips in the ground. Cooler temperatures reduce the risk of the plant succumbing to tulip fire disease.
Cultivated in Türkiye 1,000 years ago, the flower first arrived in Western Europe in the 16th century.
Within a century, ‘Tulip Mania’ hit, and some of the most desirable light bulbs cost more than a house at the time.
Inevitably, the bubble burst, but these colorful flowers have remained a favorite ever since.
Full screen: a spectacular variety of tulips will brighten your days
MIX AND MATCH
There are almost as many ways to plant tulips as there are varieties, from placing a pot of scarlet flowers by your front door to incorporating wilder species of tulip into your garden.
At Great Dixter in East Sussex, the home of the late Christopher Lloyd, head gardener Fergus Garrett and his team plant tulips and other bulbs of a cultivar in a pot, next to the porch, giving them a palette of colors and shapes which they can then rearrange. to create different effects.
You can try this at home by choosing complementary shades like the single-flowered Coral Tulipa ‘Menton’ with the almost black two-flowered T. ‘Black Hero’.
If you are planting in a border, think about what will grow next to your tulips. Peach-colored flowers such as T. ‘Apricot Pride’ and T. ‘Mango Charm’ work well standing out from a haze of blue forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvestris). Wallflowers and primroses also make good companions.
The shape is as important as the color, with flowers that look like glasses or champagne glasses, with petals with smooth edges, pointed tips or fringed.
For sumptuous blooms, grow tulips with peony blooms such as T. ‘La Belle Époque’, which fades from a dark blush to a paler brown, T. ‘Copper Image’ with warm tones, or T. rosa ‘Angelique’.
Lily-flowered tulips have long stems with petals curved at the top. Varieties include the new yellow T. ‘Crown Jewel’, the pink and white striped T. ‘Marilyn’ or the orange T. ‘Ballerina’.
WOW FACTOR
If you have the space, choose a single variety and plant 50 or more bulbs to add the wow factor.
I did this in my parents’ garden with T. ‘White Triumphator’, with coiled flower buds that start an elegant lime green before opening to a beautiful pure white.
The tulip species are smaller and wilder, appear in early spring and look great naturalized in the lawn.
T. sylvestris has tiny golden flowers with a windswept appearance and T. bakerii ‘Lilac Wonder’ has open pale purple flowers that have a golden spot in the center.
Tulip bulbs should be planted two to three times their height, with the pointed end facing up, and at a distance of about twice their length.