Flower Focus – The Big Tulip Review 2015

The tulip season is possibly the highlight of my gardening year – for a few weeks in April and May every bed is looking at its best – largely weed free and tidy and full of the colour provided by these stately elegant flowers combined with the texture offered by the emerging perennials. As a grand finale to spring the tulips are a fitting tribute to our most longed for season of the year.

Tulip-Purple-Prince — Single Early Tulip Purple Prince

Every year I try new varieties, plant more of my old favourites and play with colour schemes around the garden, so I thought it would be useful to compile my photos into one post, which will hopefully help you to plan your tulip order for this years autumn planting.

Tulip-Borders — Hardy Enjoying the Tulips

I use tulips in three ways in my garden:

Flowing through established borders in the main garden,
In regimented rows in the Cutting Garden,
As the final layer of flowers in containers planted full of layers of bulbs in the autumn.

I take each category in turn when planning my tulip order in my garden notebook. I also bear in mind the flowering time (you can have tulips from late March to early May if you pick a variety of early, mid and late flowering tulips) and longevity. I find that the frilly and parrot tulips, although lovely, do not come back reliably in future years so I limit these to small plantings in the Cutting Garden.

Tulip-Ballerina-Border — An Orange River Flowing Through A Border

Tulips for the Main Borders

The tulips that I choose for the main garden are a tried and tested selection that I have been growing for years and know will keep coming back. These old favourites include:

The single early Purple Prince grown with the slightly later flowering Shirley,
Dark tulips Queen of the Night, Recreado and Black Hero,
The late flowering Spring Green interplanted with the May flowering allium Purple Sensation,
The stunning orange lily flowered tulip Ballerina,
The classic white lily flowered tulip White Triumphator.

Purple-Prince-Border — Single Early Tulip Purple Prince

Lily-Flowered-Tulip-Ballerina — Lily Flowered Tulip Ballerina

Viridiflora-Tulip-Spring-Green — Viridiflora Tulip Spring Green

Each group of tulips are grown in their own area of the garden and seem to come back with vigour year after year. Purple Prince and Shirley have been a flowering combination now since the start of April that finally succumbed to the wild winds that were blowing last week.

Single-Late-Tulip-Shirley — Single Late Tulip Shirley

Tulips for the Cutting Garden

For the Cutting Garden I choose within four main colour schemes: whites, pinks, oranges and darks. I have four large square beds and plant the tulips in rows around the edges of these squares. Each year I plan to dig up and replant one side of each square, so that there are always spectacular new tulips to choose from when cutting. The other three sides may well re-flower giving an abundance of blooms, but in the event that the old bulbs rot or split through the winter the freshly planted side will always guarantee a good show. In the smaller rectangular beds in the Cutting Garden I grow a selection of bulbs that did not fit into my main beds.

Darwin-Hybrid-Tulip-Apricot-Impression — Darwin Hybrid Tulip Apricot Impression

Single-Late-Tulip-Dordogne — Single Late Tulip Dordogne

Triumph-Tulip-Don-Quichotte. — Triumph Tulip Don Quichotte

Double-Late-Tulip-Black-Hero — Double Late Tulip Black Hero

Triumph-Tulip-Jan-Reus — Triumph Tulip Jan Reus

Triumph-Tulip-White-Dream. — Triumph-Tulip-White-Dream

Tulips and Other Bulbs for the Containers

I have been delighted with my containers this year. In the autumn I planted up layers of bulbs – iris, hyacinths and then tulips in each pot and I have had colour from February. The tulips are just going over, so I will be emptying the pots ready to plant up the summer bedding that is waiting in the cold frames. I was concerned that the dying leaves of earlier blooms would ruin the tulip display, but they actually provided greenery and support to the tulips – an added bonus.

Tulip-Angelique-In-Container — Tulip Angelique In A Container

Double-Late-Tulip-Angelique — Double Late Tulip Angelique

Tulips-Gabriella-and-Queen-of-the-Night. — Tulips-Gabriella-and-Queen-of-the-Night

So what will I be ordering for next spring? I am currently looking back on my own photographs, perusing the catalogues that are appearing online (Gee Tee and Peter Nyssen have some interesting choices and Sarah Raven has a beautiful selection that will be revealed soon) and reading through other bloggers tulip reviews. I can recommend taking at look at My Hesperides Garden, The Blooming Garden and Owl House Flowers for some excellent ideas. I will certainly be following Christina’s idea (My Hesperides Garden) to force tulips in the greenhouse next winter and I am tempted to try more doubles and parrot tulips next season.

Please do leave comments with your favourite tulips and links to your own tulip reviews or any others that you think we would find useful – I look forward to hearing from you!

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May 15, 2015
25 Comments
by Julie

Flowers, My Cutting Garden

Ordering Tulips

I have been busy finalising my tulip order over the last couple of weeks and thought it might be useful to have a look how I plan my tulips for the spring. I find bulb buying quite a difficult exercise – always a case of ‘my eyes being bigger than my belly’ as my father would say (or more accurately bigger than my wallet!). I have many favourites that I know will be on the list every year to top up bulbs already in the ground, but there are always so many lovely new varieties in the catalogues and I want to try them all!

When growing tulips I have three categories to plan for:

1. Tulips That Will Grow in Borders In the Main Garden
2. Tulips for the Cutting Garden
3. Tulips for Pots and Container

In the main borders I have colour themed tulip plantings that largely reflect the summer colours of each border. I will plant between 2 and 3 varieties in each bed to ensure a succession of tulips and I bulk buy tulips for these plantings – often 100-200 per variety. I never dig these tulips up and some continue to flower well for years. I find the fringed and parrot tulips the most unreliable and the single varieties the best for good repeating.

Tulips need to be planted at a good depth (about 8 inches deep) in well drained soil in full sun. In damp shady soil they will rot and if planted shallowly the bulbs will split into many tiny bulblets which do not flower for years. I have never had any success with leaving tulips in pots as they always split, so I lift them after flowering and plant them in the ground to die back. It is possible to lift and dry the bulbs and store them for next autumn, but I find this too labour intensive so leave everything in the ground and keep my fingers crossed. By toping up borders every year I know there will always be a few large sized flowers to enjoy.

An example of a colour themed border can be seen below, showing Purple Prince, which is joined by Shirley a week or two later. Both varieties are single earlies, but flower for weeks on end if the temperatures remain cool and compliment each other very well. They flower with the deep purple hyacinth Woodstock and later perennials in this bed will flower largely in the same pink and purple tones.

In a large border just before the woodland I grow a succession of three orange tulips, ending with the fragrant tulip Ballerina seen below. These partner well with the zingy greens of euphorbias and are followed by apricot roses and later heleniums, crocosmia and orange dahlias.

For bulk purchasing I find The Gedney Bulb Company very reasonable and their service is excellent.

By way of contrast, in the Cutting Garden I am looking for a greater variety of tulips with a long succession of flowering, but I do not need the quantities of the main garden. I need enough of each variety to fill one or two vases, so I buy in quantities of 25 or 50. If I am trying a new variety I would always opt for 25 to give the opportunity to see how it performs both in the garden and in a vase. A good vase of tulips needs at least 12 stems and 20 will give a much more full and luxurious effect.

The first tulips to flower in the Cutting Garden this year were these very bright tulip Cilesta (in flower at the same time as the forsythia).

Below you can see tulip Cilesta growing with Jan Reus, Dordogne and Apricot Beauty in the Cutting Garden:

The next photo shows how I plant the tulips around the edges of the large cutting beds. In this way I can avoid treading on the often wet ground when picking and if the bulbs are left in to die back I can avoid disturbing them when planting summer flowering bulbs and dahlias in June. Tulips for the Cutting Garden are purchased from The Gee-Tee Bulb Company, The Clare Bulb Company and Sarah Raven.

Spring 2014 was the first time I have grown tulips in the Cutting Garden and I started the season intending to pull the bulbs up with the flowers and plant new stock this autumn. That is how a commercial cutting garden would operate. For my purposes I soon realised that this was too labour intensive and I have left most of the bulbs in the ground. The Cutting Garden is very wet through the winter, but bakes in full sun during the summer so it will be interesting to see how well the bulbs repeat here.

My favourite orange shades from last years cutting beds were the stately Apricot Impression,

The scented Ballerina,

And the frothy Orange Nassau,

My favourite pinks last year were Gander’s Rhapsody,

Lilac Time,

The late double tulip Angelique,

And the dark pink double tulip Chato,

My all time favourite white tulip for both cutting and in my main borders is tulip White Triumphator,

Last year I also grew the similar but shorter Tres Chic in the Cutting Garden,

I also love the reds for cutting – here you can see tulip Carnaval de Nice (white with red streaks) which is a perfect partner for the dark red Rococo or Kingsblood.

Another favourite red is the very long lasting Jan Reus:

My final colour variety in the Cutting Garden are the very dark (almost black) tulips of which the late double Black Hero is my absolute favourite.

I rarely dig tulips up in the main garden – I just order a few extras for each bed every year and if a bed performs particularly badly I will plant all new stock the following autumn. This year I need to restock the white tulips under the pergola, but I will just add 50 each of Purple Prince and Shirley to the South Terrace, which looked very good last year.

The accepted wisdom for planting tulips is not to start too early – late October and November are the best planting times and even into December works well. I like to have most of my tulips in the ground by the end of October though, before the weather gets too dismal, so I will start planting in early October. I plant in groups of 10 spread randomly across the border that I am restocking. In the Cutting Garden I plant all of each variety together for ease of picking in the spring.

Having finished the Cutting Garden and main borders I just have the pots left to consider. The colour theme here changes each year – this year I can feel a pink inspiration coming on. Any bulbs unplanted at the end of November will find themselves in pots in the greenhouse where you can steal a couple of weeks on the season.

I have a few untried varieties to trial this year in the Cutting Garden, so am looking forward to sharing some new tulip photos in the spring! I would love to hear what your favourite tulips are and any tips you have on growing them.

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September 25, 2014
20 Comments
by Julie

Flowers, Monday Flowers

In A Vase On Monday – Peonies and a Winner

Welcome to ‘In A Vase On Monday’ when I am linking up with Cathy at Rambling In The Garden to join her challenge to fill a vase for the house from the garden every week.

This week I am introducing my flowers on a somber note – I am dedicating my arrangement to the sister of one of my closest friends. Sadly she lost her battle with breast cancer recently and her funeral took place today. Although I did not know her very well, she has been in my life on and off for the last twenty years and was very special to her husband, family and friends. Her death at a young age is a great tragedy.

I am pleased to announce that the peony season has started in my garden! Yesterday I showed you these peonies growing in the garden. Although they are my first peonies of the year and very precious they grow in a secluded area, so cutting the flowers to enjoy inside was not too hard. There are three of these peony plants in the bed – they were here when we moved in and yesterday I said I thought they might be a variety called Red Charm. Looking closer today at images on the internet they are more like Eliza Lundy, although it is very hard to be specific. They grow in a dappled shade position in damp but not wet soil. I have found that peonies grown in full sun produce far more flowers than those grown in light shade, but the flowers do not last as long.

My cutting bed peonies are all in a very sunny position, but in the borders I use peonies wherever I think they will add to the scheme without worrying too much about sun or shade. As all my peonies apart from these three are quite recently planted this will be the first year in this garden when I have a lot of buds to look forward to. It takes a newly planted peony a year or two to produce its first blooms and then you can only expect two or three flowers. After that the plant will produce increasing numbers of flowers every year as the size of the crown expands.

One again I have chosen my silver footed rose bowl. Although I am happy to use floral foam when it is needed I prefer to make arrangements without it. The top of this rose bowl allows me to thread the conditioned stems through the grid and the arrangement builds up to be self supporting. As long as I keep the water in the bowl topped up, this should last between three and five days. I have used my beautiful mock orange bush to provide the supporting base and the honeysuckle to add some movement. The honeysuckle has been flowering in the garden for a while now, so I don’t expect it to last very long in the vase. It will be easy to replace in a day or two if necessary. Generally it is best to choose flowers that are just coming into bloom – these will have the longest vase life.

As with tulip Jan Reus, I am struggling to capture the exact shade of this peony in a photograph. Peony Eliza Lundy is described as an early flowering petite fully double red and that description certainly fits what I have growing in my garden. In the vase, however, these flowers are more of a very deep cerise.

As a filler I have added some of these large aquilegia flowers. I have no recollection of planting aquilegia where this beautiful tall pale pink specimen grows, but it does seem rather too extraordinary to be a self seeded plant.

I have also added a few of the first blooms of astrantia. This one is called astrantia ‘Buckland’ and, like the peonies, it grows in a dappled shade spot. I find that astrantia does well in both sun and shade, although again the flowers last longer in a shady spot.

I have photographed the arrangement outside as I love all the greens in the background at the moment. Flowers always look particularly fresh when they are photographed in natural light. Inside the arrangement is going to live in the drawing room:

Finally for today, I am pleased to announce that the winner of my competition last week is Rachel Slater – well done Rachel for your very prompt response! Fresh from the Field Wedding Flowers will be on its way to you in the next day or so. Rachel is a flower grower in Yorkshire – Owl House Flowers is her new cutting garden based in Bingley. She specialises in beautiful seasonal British bouquets, cut flowers and foliage. You can find out more on her lovely FB page.

I hope you will pop over to Cathy’s blog now to see what she and the others taking part in this meme have made this week.

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May 19, 2014
17 Comments
by Julie

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