1.It is the right moment to celebrate the Tulip. After all the dark waiting, their burst of colour is the quintessential signal that warmer days are round the corner. They are such a luxurious plant. A part of me can understand the Dutch Tulip mania which saw one bulb worth ten times the salary of an average worker, the price of a smart house. I would have been there, no doubt, my wife arching her eyebrows as I sold Hewitt mansions for an organ of perennation, Jack, with his beanstalk. And no, I don’t have any Bitcoin. Yet. 
2. They are so mysterious and strange in their folds and contours. This Purple Prince looks like a trio of fingers to me. Other interpretations are possible. They hold raindrops nicely too, which was useful this week.
3. I think part of why we love them so much, is that they combine endlessly with other Spring plants. I find Euphorbia characias such good value in this respect. You could put any coloured Tulip in front of it and they would shine . It is the backdrop to the leading actors, if you want to use a cheesy theatrical metaphor about it.
4. In a crowded, cottage style border, it is the clean yellow tulips which rise gracefully above the melee. Mrs W tells me they were bought 20 years ago on a visit to Keukenhof, the Dutch mecca for Tulips. I am amazed,quite frankly, that they survive, let alone thrive, in her solid clay borders. A lot of bulbs rot and decay on heavy soils and even on free draining gravel you can’t expect the same show from one year to the next. Tulips homelands are the near east, gentle mountain slopes and alkaline soil. They shouldn’t be happy in sodden clay.
5. These little wisps are Tulip sprengeri. The contrarian of the family, they flower late and like moist shade. It is a long term project as I just sunk a seed tray under my Lilac bush last Autumn and left them alone (well, I removed a few leaves and Bluebells which grew over them and generally acted like a mother hen). They reckon, “they will make a flowering sized bulb within five years”. Not sure I can mother hen it up for that long, but we will see!
6. Foliage. You have to say that Tulip foliage can be a bit annoying. Big and slow to die down and shading neighbours. It is the price you pay and a reason not to plant to thickly in a mixed border. I wanted to show the red-edged foliage of this minature Tulip linifolia, but the leaves are a bit marked by Winter and out of focus. Still, it would be great if more tulips had this kind of thin, pretty, fine foliage. Or is that just asking too much?
Tim Hewitt, Gardener 
The first tulip is certainly a royal colour, and very beautiful.
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Really nice # 2 photo with big pots in the background, these Euphorbia Ch. And tulips in the foreground… wow !
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If I didn’t already love tulips, I’d love them now. They even make euphorbia look good. (Ignore that comment if you like euphorbia.) I agree w/Fred about that photo & the pots in the background. Wonderful story about Mrs W’s yellow tulips. Amazing, really.
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Whatsamada with you, Lora? You don’t like Euphorbia? Get with the programme!
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Dam nice Tulips mine are 2 to 3 weeks behind…
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Oh yes, that’s the ticket! Cheesy theatrical metaphor? 😂 Perfect for tulips, I think!!
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Ooh I have Purple Prince too currently looking lovely next to some paper white narcissi. You are right about tulips being great complements to many other plants. I used to walk past a garden filled with tulips belonging to a wonderful old lady who told me she planted them the year her husband died – in 1980!
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I like the way you’ve themed this weeks #SixOnSaturday. I like tulips, but then spend the rest of the year digging through their bulbs by accident.
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Yeah, they do get in the way. This year I hooked a lot out and put them in a spare allotment bed. Get a few blooms, then have them out again.
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Lovely tulips. Lovely post.
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Love a tulip. I have some sprengerii seedlings, sown 15 months ago. I have not yet pricked them out. I too am dubious abkut my patience with such a long term project. But if they can just lurk in a corner of the cold frame, maybe. Maybe.
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They are a long term project, but as such will have to be easy.
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Sadly, we do not grow them much. They are nice the first year, but unless dug and chilled, they do not get adequate chill over winter to bloom again.
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Lovely, such colours! Keep celebrating the tulip, I will keep admiring them. 🙂
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Cheers!
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I have to admit that, whilst now and then I will encounter a tulip that I just have to get in the garden, I usually think of them as disposable things, grown annually for some blousy spring colour after the daffodils and which I hope will go over in time for me to dig them up to make way for new planting. Though, flukily, I seem to have acquired some this year which I’ll be carefully marking to lift and keep for next year.
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I don’t like throwing potential plants away, but I agree. They can be disposable. Pots work pretty well and I was chuffed to get quite a few blooms from last year’s bulbs at the allotment, having lined them out in Autumn.
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