Friendship flowers and patriotic petals
They’re all red and white. They look quite patriotic. And they’re slowly unfurling across the country. Canadian flags, perhaps? Nope. These symbolic splashes of colour — so welcome after our long, grey, draggy winter in Ontario — are tulips. Thousands and thousands of tulips.
Two varieties of delectable Darwin hybrids — Red Impression and White Hakun — were planted in towns and cities from coast to coast late last year in a move to celebrate our ties with the people of the Netherlands. (The longstanding tradition of the Dutch sending tulips to Ottawa every fall, as thanks for Canadian efforts during the Second World War, remains as well.)
Now, results are showing. Sort of. Check out parks and public spaces (particularly around your local cenotaph) and you may spot these so-called “Friendship Gardens” ablaze with tulips.
However, Mother Nature isn’t being exactly co-operative.
Temperatures have been so unpredictable everywhere this spring (witness the record heat and horror in Fort McMurray and beyond) that many flowers aren’t showing off their colours on schedule. And in the case of tulips, some have flowered early. Others are way behind.
“Our tulips have come up nicely, but they haven’t opened up yet,” John Barrett of Veseys Seeds (which generously donated the bulbs) told me this week from Prince Edward Island.
Presumably, the iffy spring down east is to blame.
And here in Ontario? Spotty showings are the norm.
“Maybe a ribbon-cutting ceremony will encourage those tulips to bloom,” the Orillia Packet grumbled in a story on May 9, after dignitaries had gathered to celebrate outside the local Legion garden, but were confronted by tulips with tightly closed buds.
Yet a day later, at the cenotaph in Arthur, not far away, it was a different story.
Those Red Impressions had suddenly unfurled their petals, looking glorious — and suitably patriotic — in the cool sunshine (although the white tulips remained closed).
“Aren’t we lucky?” crowed Faye Craig, secretary of Arthur Historical Society, at the town’s Friendship Garden ceremony. “They bloomed for us.”
They did indeed. And — given time — many more thousands of tulips will be lighting up Canada in springtime too, because the idea for this kind of countrywide tulipfest is catching on. When the Canadian Garden Council launched Friendship Gardens last year, more than 400 applications poured in from community groups — but they had only enough bulbs to equip 140 gardens.
So, good news: the tulip giveaway is being extended, and the plan now is to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of Canada in 2017. Once more, Veseys is playing good corporate citizen and donating thousands of bulbs to groups — but, even better, home gardeners can join in as well. Apply at: canadiangardencouncil.ca
Finally, tulips may be tardy, but not so plant sales. They’re blooming everywhere.
Coming up: Parkdale and Toronto Horticultural Society, Sat. May 14 at Roncesvalles United Church from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (parkdaletorontohort.com); Heritage plant sale at Waterloo Region Museum, Sat. May 21, from 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. (waterlooregionmuseum.com); Guelph Enabling Garden, all kinds of plants, Sat. May 29, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (enablinggarden.org); Tomato Days, May 21, 22 and 23, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at 74038 Regional Rd. 45, in Wellandport, Niagara, seedlings of unusual heirloom veggies. (treeandtwig.ca); and up in Mount Forest, the folks at Wild Things Nursery have bravely started 20 kinds of heirloom tomato plants, which go on sale May 14 (wildthings.ca). www.soniaday.com