April 2013

In her book Bulb Anna Pavord calls the tulip “…the queen of all bulbs, producing the sexiest, the most capricious, the most various, subtle, powerful, and intriguing flowers that any gardener will ever set eyes on.” I don’t know if I would call them “the sexiest”, but I certainly would call them queens. They have cast a spell over our culture as magical as roses or sunflowers. And they have cast a spell over me.

It seems so flighty to let a simple little bulb, which only shows its face above ground for a brief month or two each spring, capture all my attentions. But tulips do.

Tulip Time is a holiday to me. When I was in the tulips fields of the Skagit Valley with Michael last weekend, I saw some Indians taking pictures of each other among the rainbow of flowers.

“ This is our Holi, “ I said. Holi is the Hindu holiday that celebrates color.

“ It is a very beautiful Holi,” was the reply in broken English.

Beautiful, indeed, my smile said.

I am not a tulip expert by any means, nor a tulip enthusiast. I am a fickle tulip-lover. Some tulips I buy last only a season and are tossed. In my clients’ gardens, where the show must go on, tulips are pulled and replaced with annuals that are again replaced with tulips in fall.

In my own garden I’m much more lackadaisical.  I leave the hybrid tulips out in the grasses and weeds at the edge of our gravel drive to see if they’ll rebloom the following year. Some do; some don’t. But it never bothers me. Even my species tulips, some of which sulk and shrink in our soggy climate, don’t upset me too much when they give up, though I sure would live to see Tulipa acuminata bloom again.

I’ll order some new bulbs in the fall.

Tulips are ephemerals. It has always been this peek-a-boo nature; this here-today-gone-tomorrow sort of transience that made me love them. As one after another vanished from the garden and settled into the back of my mind, I felt like I could get on with my life: start the vegetables; clean the basement; read a cheesy novel.

But this year something changed. I started tulip seed that I collected from T. clusiana ‘Lady Jane’ last summer. But what has really changed is my desire to keep a tulip going, not just passively seeing if it makes it. That tulip is ‘Silver Standard’ (1760):

I bought ‘Silver Standard’ and a few other heirloom tulips (see below) last fall from Old House Gardens. I felt my love of tulips needed to graduate to another level. Luckily they are not selling at the inflated prices of the 1600s that crushed the Dutch economy. At that time it was the unique that fetched the highest price, the flamed and feathered tulips. In the 1920’s these tulips’ fantastic coloration was discovered to be caused by a virus. Commercial growers dropped them like a hot potato and they were quickly relegated to specialty groups like the Wakefield and North England Tulip Society, or conservation groups like the Hortus Bulborum in Holland.

Luckily for us scholar and merchant, Scott Kunst, the brains behind Old House Gardens has made these tulips available to the American public.

Scott explains on the Old House website that the virus is benign, though it can spread to other tulips and lilies and recommends growing them away from them. Scot also advised me on how to keep my tulips going so they will bloom next year. The feeding, drying and storing regime he recommended was none-too-complicated. Even my lackadaisy won’t shirk those duties.

I often find virally striated tulips among the many I order each year for my clients’ gardens. I’ve tried to save a few without much luck. Maybe I pull them too early or ignore them too much, as I said I can get pretty lackadaisical about my tulips once they are done blooming. I am trying to save one again this year that stood out in a planting of Bastogne. But mostly I am starting a digital collection. There are so many popping up in the Washington tulips fields. So with my keen eye for the broken, as these fancily colored tulips are called I snapped my way through tuliplandia. Her are a few of my favorites as ephemeral as can be: tulip growers invariably yank them to protect the rest of their crop.

‘Helmar’ is one striated tulip that returned to bloom again this year. Though I don’t recommend it I just let it dry out in its pot last summer and dragged it out into the rain again this spring. Not only did it bloom again but it showed none of the fungal problems my other potted tulips did.

Not all heirloom tulips are stripped or feathered. This lovely ‘Wapen van Leiden’ (1760) has all the subtle charm of a species tulip. It bloomed very early and has good healthy foliage and a robust demeanor for something so delicate. I am looking forward to this one for years to come.

While I was busy gawking at ‘Silver Standard’ on the kitchen window sill, I failed to notice ‘Lac van Rijn’ (1620) had opened in the greenhouse. It had already thrown back its petals to expose this showy interior.

I’m beginning to see what Anna Pavord meant when she called tulips sexy.

When I was a kid each year in spring I got some new clothes or shoes. Spring is all about the new. New growth, new birds and new shoes…and new tulips. Each fall I chose a few new tulips to try. It’s a minor expense with a great pay out. I always seem to forget over the winter what I had planted and I try to avoid reading tags and just let myself be surprised. It’s like finding Easter eggs.

Here are the new ones to me for 2013:

I’ve grown many Tulipa greggii hybrids over the years for my clients and myself. They are reliable and early and if properly placed returning year after year. This was the first time I grew ‘Pinocchio’. It charmed more than any other greggi tulip I’ve grown before. Nice pointy elongated buds, thus ‘Pinocchio’, and a great red with white piping.

Another early one from a group of reliable hardy tulips is ‘Sweetheart’, a T. fosteriana hybrid. I grew it among Euphorbia robbiae  (Mrs. Robb’s Bonnet) and with the narcissus ‘Stainless’, which turned out to be an elegant accident.

I love yellow and in particular yellow tulips. ‘Jaap Groot’, a large Darwin hybrid, has an exceptionally beautiful moony luminosity in our gray springs here.

And with great foliage, too, often a not the case with tulips, or many bulbs for that matter.

I always plant a row of tulips in the green house for early bouquets. Sweet ‘Sorbet’ is just starting to bloom when many of the tulips outside are nearly finished.

As is ‘Carousel’ a fringed tulips with splashes of red on a cream field. I was expecting more of a carnival; she is truly elegant.

I am always skeptical of catalogues touting black flowers. They always seem to disappoint. But not ‘Havran’. In bud they were a sooty black.

And in flower a deep eggplant purple, not black but so dark, especially from a distance, I did not feel duped by the catalogues for once. Notice the flower to the left actually has 8 petals. Tulips usually only have 6. If I get it to grow on I’ll call it ‘Batman’.