Time to plant your tulips
Ruth plants yet more tulips and lifts tender bulbs
WITH their glossy petals, vibrant colours and seemingly inexhaustible number of varieties, shapes and heights, tulips give so much to the springtime garden.
These wonderfully versatile plants are happy in pots and in the soil, and can be naturalised in lawns and rockeries where dwarf species create a stunning canvas alongside fritillaries, snowdrops, narcissi and other spring delights.
Tulip bulbs give of their best when planted in fertile, well-drained soil in full sun or light shade.
They dislike heavy soil that sits wet as it encourages rotting, so if your soil fits this description either lighten it by digging in lots of well-rotted organic matter or coarse gravel before planting, or grow your tulips in containers.
Bedding tulips, the widely available larger varieties, don’t always perform well after their first season, so some people lift them after they have flowered and died back to replant them in less visible areas of the garden.
However, in my experience, I have never found poor performance a problem, especially if you feed the soil where the bulbs are planted.
Species tulips, such as ‘Little Beauty’, ‘Red Riding Hood’ and the weird and wonderfully spiky ‘Acuminata’ can be left in the ground after they have flowered and died back.
Tulips are planted later than other spring bulbs to reduce the risk of the fungal disease tulip fire that rots bulbs and causes the leaves and flowers to develop a twisted, scorched look. There are no chemical controls for the problem, so if previous tulip plantings have succumbed to it, do not replant bulbs in the same soil for at least three years. ■ See page 28 for tulip inspirations.