Plant ant of the Week: Lateflowering tulips

This month is your last chance to plant an exotic spring display

Tulips are among the most iconic spring blossoms, with colours and shapes that far out-dazzle many other seasonal bulbs. They also have a long season from early April through into May but, of the 15 different forms of tulips, the late varieties are particularly useful in providing a crucial floral bridge of colour as warming weather accelerates the garden towards summer.

It’s also a season that can be difficult, as it’s often windy and wet, but late varieties generally have larger blossoms and stout stems that enable them to resist inclement weather. There are also many early-flowering perennials and shrubs to combine their exotic presence with. Their longer stems mean they can be planted among emerging perennials, such as lupins, to over-top them, or among roses that are bursting into leaf.

Although there’s a particular class of tulip called Single Late, which is derived from the oval Darwin and cottage garden types, there are also lateflowering varieties of other classes, such as fringed, lily-flowered and parrot, which collectively compose late forms, so it’s down to you to select the types you need from plant catalogues. Plant bulbs 2-3 times deeper than their height and twice their width apart in moist, well-drained soil in full sun. These types of tulip bulbs are usually discarded after flowering, as they don’t persist year to year, but you can lift the bulbs after the foliage has died

back, dry them off and replant the following autumn.