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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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Your tulips in the cutting garden looked wonderful when I saw them Julie, it was so lovely to be able to spend some time together. It is always useful to know what grow well in others’ gardens, I will borrow your idea of planting tulips in my cuttings beds but rather than at the edge as you do will plant in the middle away from the irrigation so that they will hopefully re-bloom. Thank you for the link, it will be useful to refer back to this post when all the links are here.
Thank you Christina – I loved showing you around the garden – especially at tulip time! Good luck with your Cutting Garden tulips – a great excuse to order some new varieties this year.
stunning, Julie, I’ve also had lots in containers and now that they’ve been lifted I have to find suitable places in my garden. the great thing is that you can experiment beautifully with them.
Thank you Annette. I am just about to start lifting the tulips from my pots and will have to decide which to replant and which to compost. I often find that the bulbs have diminished in size and started to split when I lift them so these are disposed off. The bigger bulbs are either dried and replanted in the autumn or added to areas further away from the house to die back – it is so exciting to see them return in the spring and you can never have too many tulips!
I really enjoyed this review on so many levels: the tulips, the photography – including the beautiful depth of field effects – and the gardening wisdom.
Thank you!! I am pleased both that you found this useful and that you liked the photographs.
Extraordinary! A beautiful report of your beautiful tulips. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you John.
A great post Julie, some of theses are favourites of mine and others are going onto my list for next year. Thanks for the mention.
You are welcome Chloris – I find it really useful to be able to refer back to posts like this when making my tulip order – especially to remind myself of tulips I have admired in other gardens. The trouble is my list is getting very long!
What a useful and beautiful post, Julie! Pleased to find some of my favourites in your collection. This is my tulip review:http://gradinameasialtefermecatorii.blogspot.ro/2015/04/lalele-aprilie-2015.html
Thank you for sharing the link to your lovely post Anca. I really enjoyed having a look at the tulips you have grown this year.
And the varieties I have had in my garden this spring:http://gradinameasialtefermecatorii.blogspot.ro/2015/04/flower-of-month-tulip.html
And they look especially lovely en masse – it was seeing tulips like this 10 or 15 years ago that changed my mind about them and now I love them too. I am still awaiting my ‘Swan Wings’… must investigate…
Did Swan Wings appear Cathy? Mine has been and gone so I am afraid something might have had your bulbs – that would be such a shame as it is a beautiful tulip.
I had a quick look but they are in the blue & white border where there is now a lot of leafy foliage so I need to poke around and look for the label. Will do it on my first ramble of the day!! It would be strange if something had happened to them as all the other new tulips have come through….
You reviews are so informative Julie and your tulips magnificent. Mine were a little disappointing, the ones at the allotment flowered on short stems so no good for cutting and new bulbs planted in pots along with narcissi failed to flower. Perhaps the narcissi which flowered beautifully for weeks took all the nutrients and I should have given the pots a liquid seaweed feed. T. Purissima was the only success and they’ve been in the borders for years and flower reliably and beautifully every year. I have made some notes for this autumn’s planting and hope to do better next year.
What a shame – I have never known tulips to be so disappointing. I do find that the early doubles can be quite short, but the Triumph varieties are reliably tall, as are the late flowering lily flowering tulips. It is important to make sure that tulips have some space around the bulbs in pots and have good compost both above and below them. Perhaps try growing them with a layer of smaller bulbs such as crocus or miniature iris above them this year and see if they flower better. I have never fed my potted tulips, but I do tend to refresh the compost in the pots when I plant bulbs in the autumn (even if it is only the top few inches in large pots).
Great tulip review! I discovered ‘Ballerina’ this year and fell in love. Happy to meet another lover of tulips!
Thank you gardeninacity – it is good to meet you too!
What a fabulous review and amazing gardens….I wish tulips liked our climate and my garden….and I wish we could plant bulbs in containers but not with our winter….but I may have a way to get some tulips that might come back to grow…more on that idea later after I read your post a few more times….
Do your tulips come back every year? We planted over 1500 two year ago. Last year we had such a display butthis year if we got 15 tulips if that. It was very disappointing
That is so frustrating when you have planted so many Maria. Unfortunately tulips are not reliably perennial. I have great success with some varieties and in some areas of the garden, but I do have to replant quite a few every year to maintain a good show. If you want to be sure of repeat flowering I would buy alliums and narcissi in future and perhaps just have a few tulips in prominent positions.
What a wonderful and useful guide. I shall refer to this for next year. I have made a note to reorder Spring Green after seeing it used to excellent effect at Sissinghurst this year.