April 2015

As most of you know who have followed this blog over the years, I love tulips. There is nothing like the great masses of color they can lend to a garden in spring. But this year I decided, actually I decided last fall, that I wouldn’t plant so many tulips. I wanted to see which tulips returned. Certainly I didn’t get a great big showing, tulips are terribly unreliable that way, but I almost appreciated them more as they returned in small clusters or just  solo. Some that hadn’t bloom in three years suddenly bloomed again. And other came back gang-busters.

The following are the ones that returned in my home garden or my clients’ gardens this spring. As I said: many happy returns.

I planted ‘Fostery King’ last year and was surprised how vigorously they returned. Even increasing in number.

A handul of the 50  ‘Curly Sue’ tulips I planted last year came back.

This single ‘ Barcelona’ has been returning for 4 or 5 years now.

I planted the lovely ‘Apricot Impression’ by the hundreds over 4 years ago. Spontaneously two returned and bloomed this spring.

Of the 100 ‘Gander’ tulips I planted last year about 25 rebloomed, and this is in a very wet border in a client’s garden.

In a very sunny well-drained border ‘Jaap Groot’ has been consistently returning for 3 years.

‘Negrita’ returns with some regularity, too.

This lone ‘ Banja Luka’ tulip has bloomed every year for the passed 8 in my home garden. Why the other 7 I planted with it all died I don’t really understand.

I am a big fan of species tulips. I always have high hopes for them to naturalize in our dry and stony raised drive. A site hat many should thrive in. I am sorry to say I have met with many disappointments. Except for this one, Tulipa urumiensis. Not only did it return, it also increased in number and did not succumb to any of the fungal diseases that plague my other species tulips.

Tulipa clusiana ‘Lady Jane’ also bloomed again this year after taking a break last year.

Tulipa clusiana var. chrysantha has also been a good repeat bloomer and very charming among the early emerging grasses in a client’s sunny border.

Tulipa clusiana ‘Peppermint Stick’ is by far doing the best. On the recommendation of Brent Heath of Brent and Becky’s Bulbs I planted a few bulbs in the grass of our cherry orchard. They are doing splendid. No signs of fungal problems like other tulips on the property, increasing in number and in size. I will definitely add more this fall.

As I said, I can even be happy with just one flower, when a special tulip returns. Tulipa turkestanica should be a reliable rebloomer and colonizer for us, but here in the Snoqualmie Valley it is a bit of a laggard. Still when this flower opened in the first week of March I was ecstatic.

Tulipa humilis ‘Odalisque’ has been reblooming for years, though fails to increase.

Tulipa sylvestris returns both at home and in my client’s garden. I grow it in full sun and full shade and it takes both with easy. I just wish it would stand up better to our spring rains.

Tulips whittallii, by far my favorite tulip of any kind, is a good naturalizer, especially if somewhat “abused”. It seems to do best in a dry sunny spot and doesn’t mind the competition of weed roots in my home garden, inadvertently mimicing the mountain meadows of Western Turkey, where it grows natively.

The first of my tulips started blooming  last week. The delicate and diminutive  Tulipa bifloraformis ‘Starlight’. Though spring is coming on fast here, most of my large showy tulips are still holding off. Maybe there will be spring in April, too, not just March.  I will certainly start posting my yearly spate of tulip images and adulations as soon as they are in bloom. But for now, because I am impatient, something else.

A few years ago I published a post titled: ICONIC TULIPS. A little history of the powerful and popular use of tulip imagery.  Little did I know at the time that I would become a “collector” of tulip imagery.   It is quite amazing when you start looking how often the simple beauty of tulips is used for advertising, art, architectural decoration, clothing, etc. This post will simply share my favorites  over the past few years. All over the world, and here at home (mostly at Goodwill), I’ve turned my admiring lens toward the tulip as image. What I have captured is not only the iconic tulip, but also the ironic tulip. High art and kitsch. Handmade and mass produced here they are:

House address sign Kapoho Tidepools, Big Island, Hawaii.

Freeway on ramp decoration in Mount Vernon, Washington.

Over-priced rummage sale in Sturgeon Bay , Wisconsin.

Door to Horizon Herbs billing office, Grants Pass, Oregon.

Detail of a Baroque painting in the Museo Nazionale Palazzo Reale, Pisa, Italy.

Flea Market Cologne, Germany.

Goodwill, Bellevue, Washington.

Could these be Egyptian lotuses instead of tulips on the facade of this Lake Mills Wisconsin cafe?

Beeferoo restaurant, Iron River, Michigan.

Goodwill , Seattle, Washington.

Capital Hill, Seattle, Washington.

School mural, Brooklyn, New York.

Unplugged fountain, Bellevue, Washington.

“Tulip for Patti Smith” by John Buck at Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle, Washington.

Litter, Eugene, Oregon.

Restaurant lamp, Pisa , Italy.

Turkish Tile, Seattle Art Museum.

The world’s  oldest perfume factory, Farina, in Cologne ,Germany.

A bouquet of plastic tulips made by a 3D printer in a private home in Croton-on-Hudson, New York.

Michael informed me that what I thought were tulips were probably dinosaur foot prints.

Part of an installation by Japanese artist Mr.at the Seattle Asian Art Museum.

A bench at a Tucson , Arizona resort.

A Whirligig (the tulip flowers spin in the wind) on a front porch in the Green Lake neighborhood of Seattle.

Goodwill, Seattle, Washington.