It’s blisteringly hot here & the sky is a cloudless, deep blue, but it’s time to think about the garden next spring, specifically it’s time to plan & order tulips that’ll flower then.
I love tulips in almost all their varieties & I’m excited about growing them here because all the landscape works will be finished in a few weeks time. I’ve been longing to plant up the garden since we moved here 18 months ago, there isn’t a single tulip growing in the whole garden, which is a very sad state of affairs.
They’re best planted in October-November when the cold has knocked back fungal & viral diseases, order them now for the best chance of getting exactly what you want & they’ll be delivered in a few weeks time.
I took a few photos at the Chelsea Flower Show in May, so I hope this whets your tulip appetite.
Tulip Angelique a pretty peony-flowered one, 40cm tall, flowers in May
I’ve a soft spot for flowers with a tinge of green, this is Tulip Virichic, or very chic as I’m calling it. It’s 45cm tall, flowering in May.
Tulip Blue Diamond is really violet coloured- thank goodness because a blue tulip would be very odd. 45cm tall & also flowers in May.
Tulip Doormans Record is a parrot type, with silky frilly leaves.
You can buy tulips that flower in March, but I like the late-April early-May flowering because they flower just when the daffodils have finished flowering in mid-April.
Remove plastic packaging when they arrive & store them in a cool place where air can circulate around them, & they can’t be eaten by mice.
Plant them 15-20cm deep & about 15cm apart in a sunny or part-shaded area of the garden, place them on a layer of grit if the soil is heavy. Select up to 3 different colours that you like together & make sure they flower at the same time, it doesn’t matter if the heights are a bit different, it adds a a kind of texture to the whole thing.
Planting distances are different for tulips in pots, they’re planted much closer together, just a couple of centimetres apart & need a covering of 5cm of compost. I use a mix of John Innes loam-based compost & multi-purpose compost with a layer of fine grit in the bottom for good drainage.
Tulip Lambada has finely-cut tips to the petals & is a pleasing, warm pinky-orange that grows to 50cm tall.
Sumptuous Tulip Apricot Parrot, I’d love some of these in a pot by the front door.
Tulip Professor Roentgen, I feel it deserves a more romantic name, but I’m in love with it anyway.
Resist the temptation to tidy & cut off the foliage after flowering, give it a feed of balanced fertiliser & leave the foliage to turn brown & wither away, letting the bulb fatten up & store energy for flowering again next year.
Do the same with tulips in pots, but dig them up & plant them in the garden.
I hope you enjoy the rest of the week.
Jill
all photos: Jill Anderson.
I’m hopeless when presented with a choice – even when I’ve got the colours sorted in my head. For the community gardens here, I usually buy a bumper bag from the supermarket, 50 bulbs for a fiver, and had really spectacular displays with the pinks up first, crossing over with the reds and, as the pinks fade, yellow striped mingle with the reds. It’s bizarre but has happened like that for the past three years.By planting deep, they’ve become short lived perennials – so even more of a bargain! Love Virichic and Lambada in your selection, so so beautiful.
Bumper bags from the supermarket are a great idea, because it can all get so expensive, your planting sounds fabulous & good to have a succession of flowers! I was ogling the huge bags of daffs/narcissi in Homebase yesterday, they’re very tempting as I’m going to need quite a few to make an impact, & I’ll plant them deep too!