A FANTASIA OF FLYING COLOURS
As tulips start to bloom we can take inspiration from grower Claus Dalby
TULIP season has begun, so let’s take time to enjoy these beauties as they are fleeting enough.
It’s a good time to take note of the varieties you like so you can order them in late summer – they’re hugely popular and you need to be ahead of the game to obtain the ones you like.
Here is some inspiration from a Danish gardener called Claus Dalby. Some years ago I discovered his magical horticultural abilities on social media, stumbling upon pictures of coloured themed pots in layered displays outside the gates of his home near Risskov in Denmark.
From spring tulips through to late summer dahlia displays, Claus creates portable borders using hundreds of planted terracotta pots packed together.
In total he has over 2,000 pots of colour in flower foliage and more recently vegetables.
Claus has set the standard for both growing in pots and arranging the results. The pictures he paints are simply thrilling.
They delight from spring to autumn with the main spring show delivering eye candy from late April/beginning of May, when he focuses on spring bulbs, especially narcissus and tulips, together with Viola cornuta, Myosotis, Erysimum and Heuchera.
Through summer, containers filled with annuals grown from seed in Claus’s greenhouses are added to the displays.
His technique involves planting just one variety in each pot allowing him to take pots out and replace them once the plants are done blooming.
Repetition of colours through the displays is another primary principle of his way of container gardening.
Claus is generous with his knowledge and an easy communicator. He gives regular tours over Instagram live, produces informative video tutorials and encourages legions of worldwide followers in an easygoing inclusive and open style.
Enjoy the pictures here, they’re the end results of some horticultural, display and photography skills. Take a moment to consider the design principles of the plantsman and work out for yourself how the magic has been achieved.
A question I’m often asked is whether tulips will flower again next year and this topic can be a lively debate amongst gardeners!
In the wild, they’re perennial, often smaller varieties that grow on rocky soil.
For example Tulipa acuminata has wonderful pointy red and yellow flowers and will naturalise in your garden.
Hybrid tulips which have been bred in Holland for colour and flower shape are best treated as annuals if you want to be sure of a good display.
However, if you’re not too fussy (like me), dead head and leave them in the ground or containers, allowing the foliage to die back naturally as you do with daffodils so that the bulb can be replenished. Some will return and some won’t.
In my garden I get a smattering of repeats and at the moment some early single varieties are popping up such as ‘Purple Prince’ and the orange ‘Princess Irene’.
Alternatively, if you want to reuse your pot once they have finished flowering, you can gently dig them up and let them dry out somewhere warm, storing them for replanting next November.
You may notice small bulblets attached to the main bulb – these can be removed and separately potted up.
Tulips can look messy when dying so if you have them in borders, it’s a good idea to plant them among some emerging perennials which will hide the untidy foliage.