ON THE COVER Susie’s Garden All about tulips!
Our expert is talking tulips – high and low maintenance, pale and deep colours and what best to grow alongside them
For a spectacular show, it is hard to beat tulips. I add more to the garden each year, and there is something magical about planting a plump brown bulb in early winter and seeing it blaze into colour in spring.
Most of the tulips I grow are varieties that will stay in the borders and keep producing flowers. Although there are many fabulous tulips that require lifting and storing, I find that takes up too much time so I prefer the types that will naturalise.
I also like the cottage garden effect of seeing tulips mixed in with spring flowering perennials as I prefer a more natural look.
So, what you combine tulips with can show them off to their best? You can grow them with similar or with contrasting colours. Photinia ‘Red Robin’ is the perfect match for these orange-red lily tulips, not only in colour but in shape too. Lily tulips differ from other types because of their slender pointed petals and their graceful appearance.
That combination works so well because of the similar colours, but you can also go for a complete contrast such as this mix (above) of the red tulip ‘Apeldoorn’ with a background of lime green Euphorbia polychroma.
This euphorbia is one of the brightest stars of the spring garden, making a brilliantly coloured mound of foliage that lasts the best part of a month.
It is easy to divide and increase your plants, but when handling euphorbias, use gloves and eye protection because of the toxic latex sap they contain.
Tulips come in a wide range of colours from dazzling white, through the softest of pastel shades, to fiery red and orange and near-black deep purple.
Some have frilled petals, others are streaked with different colours. They can be delicate and shapely or a riot of many petals.
The more exotic, huge flowered varieties tend to be the sort that need lifting and storing, but one that can be perennial is the sumptuous ‘Abu Hasan’ which has deep mahogany petals with an edging of gold.