Tulips Ideas, Tips & Guides

Averting my eyes from the tulips which were shouting “Pick me! Pick me!” as I walked past, I headed towards the bottom end of the garden to pick some of the marauding Spanish bluebells that have sneaked their way in under/over/round the fence. The impact of bluebells in the garden has really registered in recent days, with the uninvited guests and the more local residents joining forces to provide by far and away the biggest splash of blue in the garden out of all the seasons. There may be little patches of blue from spring bulbs and isolated spots in the summer months, but bluebell season is something else and the splashes will only get larger and more widespread as time goes on, with even the English bluebells popping up in other parts of the garden than the woodland. By picking the Spanish bluebells, however, I can at least try and restrict their desire for dominance!

With the third series of the hit drama about to start and The Bridgerton Garden coming to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show later this month, now is the ideal time to invest in some new plants to bring a touch of Regency glamour and romance to your garden.

Tulips are amazing flowers, but cultivating them everywhere is not possible. The reason why we have their lookalikes in this article to ensure you get their beauty without actually having them!

Having mentioned before that the rhododendrons seemed to be flowering better than any other year, I can also say that I don’t recollect ever seeing anything with blooms as dense as this before – R. yakushimanum ‘Vintage Rose’ is absolutely astounding! Mind you, I don’t think I remember seeing destruction quite as quick or efficient as that experienced by Fritillaria imperialis either!

Sharon Greenthal

Putting plants together is the most creative and joyful part of making a garden. With colour, shape and texture, you can conjure up a living work of art, something that not only gives you sensory pleasure but also benefits wildlife and the environment. But with so many options available to us, where do we start? I always think back to the plantswoman Beth Chatto and her mantra ‘right plant, right place’ when conceiving a plan, because there is no point in rushing to place your favourite sun-loving flowers in a shady spot at the back of a north-facing house. ‘Plants, like people, have their preferences and don’t like being thrust into the nearest available hole,’ she observed.

After summer's scorching heat, autumn's cooler temps signal it's time to plant spring-blooming bulbs. They may not offer instant gratification, but with minimal effort, fall-planted bulbs will provide vibrant post-winter blooms well worth the wait. 

May is a busy month in the garden, with seeds to sow, young plants to harden off and plant out, and spring shrubs to prune – not to mention leaving enough time to enjoy the warmer, longer days. The risk of frost will be over in most areas by the end of the month, so tender and half-hardy plants such as dahlias, zinnia and cosmos can be planted outside, ready for dazzling summer displays.

Once again, a large degree of editing was required to get today’s selection down to six or thereabouts, to meet the rules of Jim’s Six on Saturday meme. Why not visit his blog to check out his six and those of other bloggers around the world?

Technical issues will keep this post brief as a mammoth Windows ‘update’ and ‘cleaning’ of my laptop yesterday evening would have kept me up way past my bedtime otherwise!

We have had a few days away visiting my Mum, and although I wouldn’t usually choose to leave the garden at this time of year it was a case of needs must. Fortunately, one of our neighbours can be relied on to water everything in the greenhouse in our absence, my main concern, and this is where I hot-footed it to on our return. Not only were the seedlings still thriving, but they looked increasingly sturdy and bursting with health, necessitating several hours in the last couple of days potting them on.

It’s tulip time, those fleeting weeks of the year when Irish gardens are filled with the graceful, brilliantly colourful flowers of what must be one of the world’s best-loved spring flowering bulbs.

Thanks to their quality and affordability, it's pretty easy to love IKEA furniture. Though the pieces often feature basic lines and simple structures, they make the perfect blank canvas to personalize, and from that came IKEA hacks.

I was trying to avoid tulips for today’s IAVOM, as they could easily become a mainstay for many weeks; however, these creamy tulips were tucked out of the way where they mightn’t otherwise be seen and, like last week’s fiery contribution, they are also a bit of an enigma. They are growing in the cutting beds where they were planted around 10 years ago with the sole purpose of cutting them. Presumably, they flowered in the first year of planting but, although there has been foliage in some of the intervening years, I don’t think there have been any further blooms until now. My guess is that these are mature bulblets from the original bulbs, now large enough to flower: I have only picked the two blooms that were in full flower, but there are others to come. They may be ‘Exotic Emperor’, which I have bought periodically over the years.

Although winter and early spring flowering plants might have started flowering a little earlier this year than some, they were not unseasonally early; this is not the case with Rhodendron ‘Wine and Roses’ (above) and the large unnamed specimen below, which is light pink in bud but white in boom. Unlike last year, when blooms were sparse on all but ‘Cheers’, all our rhododendrons are smothered in swelling buds.

A large part of the appeal of tulips lies in their wonderful ability to make a bold statement indoors – how when they’re cut and displayed, they take on something of the character of the space in which they sit. Tulips grow into the room. They move and twist towards the light. Their colours bounce around objects and furniture. Tulips simply have an uncanny ability to elevate the interior decoration.

I promised you tulips today, but even I wasn’t expecting these ones, remnants from a previous planting in a pot now filled with Carex ‘Everillo’. I can remember buying some fiery tulips two or three years ago, but have no idea why I would have put them in that particular pot, as their bright and brash colouring would have necessitated a planting location near the bold borders. Nevertheless, there they were, pushing aside the grass and cocking a snook at the main borders filling up with foliage of plants that will in due course have pink and purple blooms, so I had no qualms in cutting short their exhibitionism.

Having photographed several contenders for today’s Six on Saturday, the popular meme hosted by Jim of Gardening Ruminations, I then had to do a cull – but suggest you don’t actually count how many have been included in today’s post!

We’re back today with photos that Marilyn Regnier shared with us of her once-in-a-lifetime trip to see the famous Keukenhof spring flower-bulb displays. The park in Lisse, Netherlands, shows off millions of bulbs each spring, with displays that are both over the top and full of ideas you can take home—on a smaller scale—to your own garden.

There are many beautiful indicators of spring: light rain showers, the sun beginning to rise earlier and set later, allergies, and, of course, the blooming tulips. With their soft and elegant blooms and vibrant color variations, tulips instantly brighten up any space.

Today Marilyn Regnier is taking us along on a trip of a lifetime, to see the biggest spring bulb display in the world.

The snowdrops are over and the witch hazels finished flowering more than a month ago but hellebores, with their long season of interest, continue to make their presence felt. There are a few flashes of purple from lingering crocuses and the streamside grass is still ablaze with yellow ‘Tête-à-tête’, and now the later spring bulbs are beginning to appear – fritillaries are so pretty, with their nodding purple snakes’ heads, even more so when growing in a clump, aren’t they?

Nigeria boasts a wide variety of native Nigerian flowers that are synonyms to the country’s diverse ecosystems. These blooms are also vital for bees, butterflies, and birds, which play an important role in maintaining the ecological balance.

From delicate lilacs to deep purple and burgundy, these Purple Tulip Varieties have something for everyone. Stay tuned.

Tips for Growing Tulips in Warm Climates

Although snowdrops are all but over, hellebores are still making a big statement in the garden and it could be easy to overlook other signs of early spring. I haven’t made a point of featuring hellebores in  a post this season, not yet anyhow, but thought I would begin my post that links with Jim’s Six on Saturday meme at Garden Ruminations with H ‘Glenda’s Gloss’, to show off her intriguing blooms – you don’t need to be able to look Glenda in the face to see how beautiful she is.

Today we’re visiting with Lee, who gardens in central New York State. We’ve visited Lee’s garden before (Early Spring Blooms from the Mohawk Valley).

There’s nothing like a spring container to celebrate the fact that we’ve turned the corner, leaving winter behind us. From bright yellow daffodils that yell ‘Spring!’ to more subtle narcissus that whisper the change of season, or from the lush green of ferns to a sweet-shop display of tulips, there’s a spring container for everyone. And the beauty of a container (a small one at any rate) is that it’s portable so you can move your pot of joy to wherever you’ll see it most – right on your front doorstep, or just outside the kitchen window so you can gaze at it while doing the dishes! Our choices include recommendations from the Gardeners’ World team and familiar faces from across the gardening industry.

This is Barb Mrgich, Master Gardener from Adams County, Pennsylvania. I have sent in several entries in the past. (Butterflies in Barb’s Garden and Barb’s Favorite Photos ) I love lots of color in my gardens. In January, Joseph did an entry on yellow in the garden, and it inspired me to submit these photos. I really like his description that yellow flowers are “floral sunshine.” A little floral sunshine is never more appreciated than in the very early spring when things are looking rather dull and dreary! Although I like to consider myself a wildlife and native-plant gardener, I still rely on select nonnatives for beauty and color in the early season since I have found that most of my native plants shine better in midsummer and fall. All of these pictures were taken in mid-April in my Zone 6B garden.

Tips for Growing Greig’s (Greigii) Tulips Tulipa greigii

Having a Black Magic Garden doesn’t necessarily mean that you must go all in with horror vibes! It can be a mix of dark and light tones that exude mysterious vibes.

In his classic book Mormon Country, author Wallace Stegner noted that nineteenth century Mormons planted rows of Lombardy poplar trees wherever they established settlements in the territory that is now Utah. The trees served as windbreaks and boundary markers, but they were also the flags that marked the advance of Mormon civilization in a hostile territory. In my hometown and lots of other towns all over the United States elm trees served a similar function, marking the spread of middle class residential neighborhoods during the end of the nineteenth and the first third of the twentieth centuries. In the 1960’s almost all of those tall elegant trees fell prey to Dutch Elm Disease, making each municipality a little poorer.

Not long ago, I was talking to a gardening friend. The subject was spring bulbs, and her lament was that she just didn’t have the time to get them in the ground. “I’ve given up buying bulbs,” she said, “because every year they end up rotting in my garage.” I can sympathize with her, because of every fall, at least in my little corner of the world, sinister forces conspire to take away the weekends that I intended to spend planting all the bulbs that I ordered back in August.

With his brother Chris, Paul Blom selects premium bulbs to be sold to discerning customers by the family company, Bloms Bulbs.

Today I turned forty mumble, mumble, mumble today. A fabulous start to the day with the kids coming in early with some wonderful pressies. I got another t-shirt (garden themed of course), some unusual fruit teas which most are very difficult to get in the shops, a wonderful new note book to write down any novel idea I have (I’ve got a few notes to do on my first novel, but am thinking about what happens in the second book already), a couple of fabric head bands, The Greatest Showman Bly Ray (it’s one of those films, when I’m feeling a bit weird and not myself I’ll sit and watch. I think I’m over the top of the hill with the weird feelings, but it’s taking a long while to descend the mountain), the Sarah Pinborough novel Behind Her Eyes, if you’ve not seen the 6 part drama I suggest you give it a go. And finally some new slippers that are so cozy to put your feet inside, and the softest dressing gown I have ever felt and some money from various other people.

They Play an Important Part in Beautifying Gardens Throughout the Greater Part of the Year