Top tulips
There are some spectacular tulip varieties in garden centres at the moment, but which is the best one for your patch?
Limit me to only one bulb I could plant in my garden, and I’d pick the tulip. The sheer breadth of form and colour makes them a stunning addition to any garden – and they do as well in pots as they do in beds or borders.
Now is a great time to commit them to the ground but take care to select a variety that suits the place you intend to plant them.
If you want them to bloom in a flower bed at the same time as wallflowers, for instance, you’ll need the later Mayflowering kinds. And choose ones that are listed as being taller than the wallflowers, otherwise their blooms will be hidden by their bedfellows’ foliage.
For a cottage garden effect, buy a dozen each of lots of different varieties and plant them in thick groups – roughly 4in deep and as much apart. It’s a false economy to leave a greater distance between the bulbs, since the overall effect will be mean.
For a touch of class, plant a narrow border with one variety alone.
‘White Triumphator’ is fabulously cool, with its lily-shaped flowers, or for a warmer tone choose ‘Mariette’ or ‘China Pink’.
Mixing purple ‘Queen of Night’ with ‘Pink Diamond’ is one of my favourite combinations.
If you prefer to plant in pots, then a dozen bulbs will fit neatly into a 10in or 12in clay flowerpot. Plant them 3in deep and space them evenly apart. Use peat-free multipurpose compost (bulb fibre is only necessary for containers with no drainage holes). You can do this with the spectacular parrot tulips such as the red and white ‘Estella Rynveld’ with its striped and feathered flowers. Other personal favourites include the deep-red and yellow-edged ‘Gavota’, white and purple ‘Shirley’ and orange and purple ‘Princess Irene’.
There are few tulips that disappoint, and I’d settle for a bit of everything in my garden – starting off with the Greigii and
Fosteriana tulips that are of modest height and which flower from early April, to the double late tulips that can still be giving their all in mid-May.
Most must be dug up and stored once the foliage has died down, but if you want to take a gamble on your tulips coming up year after year without having to lift them, plant bulbs 8in deep. That way many will become permanent residents, appearing each spring.
‘‘ If you want to gamble on not lifting them, plant them 8in deep