Tulip time

We’re planting several hundred tulips this week.  Hooray!!

They arrived several weeks ago but we’ve been trying to make space in the beds to plant them.  We’ve gone for some old favourites; classics almost you might say.  ‘Rhapsody of Smiles’ is the only one we weren’t familiar with.  It’s a single late flowering tulip with flushes of yellow and red emitting warmth like that of a ripening peach.  Virtually black ‘Queen of Night’ has very subtle hints of purple and red and is always an eye catcher even on a dull day or in a shaded corner. 

‘West Point’ is a beautiful yellow fluted lily flowered tulip so graceful and delicate in appearance but quite strong enough to be out in the wilds of our rural frost prone garden.  It has an RHS award of garden merit and has graced gardens for over a century.  Our final choice, the elegant ‘White Triumphator’ is another lily flowered tulip just a little bit stockier in the petal than ‘West Point’; a dramatic stark contrast to the rounded form of black ‘Queen of Night’.  Wish us luck.

Hopefully our aching backs and muddy knees will be a small price to pay when we get to see the fruits of our labour in late spring.