I love tulips!
🌷🌷🌷
And you?
Here are some gorgeous samples to make you smile. They are in a vase because it is Monday and I am joining Cathy at Rambling in the Garden for her Monday meme again.
- Yellow lily-flowered: West Point
- Orange lily-flowered: Ballerina
- Purple: Purple Dream
- Purple with green: Purple Dance
- Pink with green and gold tinge: Amazing Parrot
- Orange and yellow: The packet simply said ‘Parrot’
- Orange with gold and green tinge: Dynasty Orange (Could be a new favourite!)
- 2 x yellow and cream with orangey tips: Akebono (last year‘s favourite and still very much loved)
Click on any image to create a slideshow.
My props this week are my collection of hearts. I never intended to collect them, but they just seem to have multiplied over the years and several have a special meaning, reminding me of loved ones past and present. 😊
What is your favourite tulip? Any recommendations most welcome as I will be looking at Peter Nyssen‘s webiste soon and choosing my tulips for autumn planting. Best to preorder as the best and most popular sell out really quickly. 😉 I will definitely be ordering more of these…
Tulipa humilis Helene
I have been so busy in the garden recently and hope to reveal my new project soon. I also have another store cupboard recipe or two to share later this week for all of you avoiding supermarkets like the…. no, I won‘t say it!
My thoughts are with everyone in lockdown, be it partial or total. Our restrictions are slowly being lifted at last here in Bavaria, and the garden centres are reopening this week, albeit with very strict hygiene regulations. Yay!
Have a good week!
😃
Words and Herbs 
I love your tulips Cathy! I too love tulips, but I have lots of trouble with deer, so, for at least now, I can’t grow them in my front yard. My goal was to move them all to the back so the deer won’t get them. Since they don’t come back on subsequent years as well as the first year, do you think that is worth all the effort? I’m not super knowledgeable on tulips, so I could use your advice.
Since mine are few and far between, I love seeing everyone’s displays either in the garden or in a vase, and I thank you for sharing yours. My favorite tulip, no matter what it’s name is, will always be any variety in pink.
Hi Cindy. Fortunately we don‘t have deer in the garden, but mice are partial to tulip bulbs, so mine do not come back reliably either! In the future I would like to grow them in a raised bed, with suitable protection, which might be an idea for you in your back yard. Makes replanting easier too. I replant every year as the highly bred ones don‘t last for longer than a couple of years really. I reckon I have had a 50% loss to the mice as well this spring! But I love them so much that I do make the effort. Planting in pots is also a great idea if you have a shed or garage where they can stand when it is really cold. Mine stood outside all winter as it didn‘t get much below -8°C this year. I find pots are easier to protect and can be moved around. And I have no losses in pots either. 😃
What a wonderful and colourful collection! My favourite, this year, is the early flowering botanical T. Turkestanica. Multiple small blooms per stem, a surprising yellow center – and it’s a honey bee magnet!
Hi Chris. I love the early ones too. Botanical tulips always do well here and blend into the natural setting while these blousy ones clash a little and cry out for attention!
Such a nice variety of tulips. I have to say I enjoy all of them, as we can’t grow them here.
I can appreciate that as there are so many plants I can‘t grow here too. Glad to share!
I love your delightful range of tulips, especially the parrots! Such a good name for a flower with so much expression! Amanda https://therunningwave.blogspot.com/2020/04/these-are-few-of-my-favourite-things.html
Hi Amanda. Yes, the parrots are very extrovert! 😉
I like the little species crocus like Chris, for my garden but love to admire other people’s large ones.
The colour they provide gives me a boost and keeps me going until my summer plants start flowering. 😉
Wondrous! They lift my spirits.
Precisely what they do for me too Susie. And we need that more than ever this spring. xx
Wonderful, wonderful tulips Cathy. Every time one opens, it’s my favourite, so I can’t choose well. But I do love ‘Westpoint’, ‘Queen of the Night’, ‘Sweet Impresson’ and ‘Sorbet’. Mainly because they are so beautiful and persist here. This year my little stars (brief, with the heat) have been T. sylvestris & T. whittalli ‘Major’. Thanks for your celebration of the lovely tulip! We can see why people lost millions on them … look forward to more of your recipes!
The sylvestris lasted pretty well here, but it always seems to be the same with a hot spell just as they come out. I am not complaining about the warm spring though… imagine if it had been cold and wet while we are all shut in at home. Doesn‘t bear thinking about!
I do know exactly what you mean. My husband says that in about 3 days it will start raining for 40 (he’s a ‘card’). Although I’m worried about the garden, I think the amazing weather has lifted my spirits.
I’ve never seen a tulip I didn’t like, Cathy. As I can’t grow any of the large-flowered types here to save my life, I can’t provide useful input other than to say I’ve always loved the splashy parrot varieties. Envious as I am of your tulips, I’m equally envious that your garden centers are re-opening. My local garden center is closed to in-store traffic and available for online orders only but you can’t see what they have in inventory so it’s rather like playing bingo wearing a blindfold.
Our garden centre was also offering an online service, but with just a list of plants and no pictures or details regrading size or colour! Glad I waited it out – I made my first trip yesterday for some essential compost and pots and came home with a few bits and bobs and summer bedding plants too. 😃 I hope your restrictions will also allow you a garden centre trip soon Kris. xx
My garden is starved for tulips. Thanks for reminding me. Hope to remember when it’s time to order.
They never seem to come back reliably do they. I try and replant most years. 😃
Lovely collection, Cathy! I love them all – how can I have a favorite amidst such beauty?
My ‘Lady Jane’ tulips have started blooming, so begins the cascade!
My favourite varies daily. I am so fickle! LOL!
Tulips – what’s not to love abou them! Yours look stunning and lift the spirits, something we all need these days. Think we won’t be able to buy any flowers this spring. I love the species tulips a lot, they’re so sweet. clusiana, whittallii, sprengerii…have naturalised Angélique, Black Beauty and Ballerina in the grass and they come back every year. Take care and I can’t wait to hear about your project!
Ooh, that must be lovely to have tulips in the grass! 😃 Our mouse population would love that! 😬
Ballerina has stood up bets to the fierce winds we have had again.
Wow – you have some that have naturalised – that it what I would like, otherwise they seem like very expensive annuals. I will look to see if I can get any that you mention.
‘Akebono’ is in front and off to the right? They look different from each other. The one off to the right, which is not so visible, is probably my favorite. The name is cool too.
Yes, they are both the same but the larger one was a new one planted in a pot and the smaller one is in the garden in its second year. I don‘t remember it being so big last year though. I love the name too! When I lived in Japan in the 90s I went to see the sumo several times and Akebono was magnificent! 😃
Yeah, that guy . . . is like so not like tulips or flowering cherry trees.
I love all your tulips, though the Parrots always catch my eye I think they are difficult to use in the garden. I am avoiding the grocery like the, won’t say it either. Looking forward to those recipes.
Thanks Amy. Have a good week. 🤗
I love your tulips Cathy but not probably don’t love mine enough as they do not do well for me. Also I don’t like the foliage. However my four pots seem to be flourishing this spring maybe because himself planted them up when my hand was in plaster😂 I like the look of your ‘Purple Dance’. ‘Mount Tacoma’ is a favourite with me.
Hi Anna. I do sometimes wonder if our plants know when they are appreciated and react accordingly! I looked up Mt Tacoma and it is similar to one I have called spring green.
Hooray for reopening garden centers! As for a favorite tulip, I don’t think I could limit myself. Certainly ‘Ballerina’, ‘Princess Irene’, and ‘Couleur Cardinal’ are favorites. And I like your T. humilis ‘Helene’.
Ballerina has gone up on my list. I think I will look out for Couleur Cardinal, which I seem to remember you had in pots one year.
I love all your tulips. Its colors make me smile and make me happy, because today I need it for the cold and pain in my ears. My favorite of your tulips is Akebono, T. Loro. and T. ballerina. The hearts you have put are lovely, I love them. I miss my garden, because the way things are going in Spain I will not be able to see it all summer. Your garden is beautiful with the Tulipa humilis Helene, I love it. I am very glad that your nursery has opened! Now you will not stop buying plants for your beautiful garden. Happy gardening. Take good care of yourself and stay safe. Very affectionate greetings from Margarita
So glad you like the tulips Margarita. I hope you will soon have a bit more freedom to be able to go outside. Take care and all the best!
My neighbour has a scented tulip which is such a bright spark of orange. I would like any tulip that comes back year on year, so long as it is not yellow. I’m not a fan of yellow flowers in the garden other than daffodils, and even then I prefer white ones.
None of them seem very reliable except the smaller botanical ones perhaps which are often yellow! I know some people don‘t like yellow in their gardens, but I love it! 😉