Earliest April coaxes out the white, yellow, and purple of tulip time’s advance color-bearer—the species tulip Tulipa biflora—with the whole glorious army of species tulips following close behind.
For these native or wild tulips, come early and stay late—as we like all our favorite visitors to do. And these are very special favorites for many reasons.
Size, Color, and Shape
In addition to their obvious charm of an early bloom, timed to complement the starry chionodoxa, trim blue muscari, and fluffy white foamflower, species tulips offer infinite variety in size, color, and shape.
Tulipa biflora and T. fosteriana are the smallest and largest of all tulips.
Colors range from:
- White and cream T. tarda
- Yellow and lilac T. pulchella
- Pink-margined T. marjoletti
- Yellow and green inside
- Orange T. orphanidea
- Dazzling vermillion T. eichleri
- Mauve to purple T. violacea
Then, too, since these are all nature’s originals, there’s a collector’s pride in owning them. And a few species of tulips introduced into the sunny border or rock garden will surely make an avid collector of any gardener.
Once you’ve been delighted by T. turkestanica’s white and gold star flowers, you’ll have an irresistible urge to preview them the next year with the smaller, earlier stars of T. biflora and to continue the stellar parade on into the middle of April with the larger and even more charming and easily grown T. tarda.
Perhaps the species introduced has been red and white T. clusiana, called candy, radish, or lady tulip, according to one’s fancy. Having enjoyed this confection, who could resist adding a clump of the similar, if daintier, T. stellata to the garden showcase?
Then it’s always fun to be the first in the neighborhood to grow an unusual flower. “Just smell this lovely yellow tulip!
Isn’t it fragrant? The name? Why is it T. australis, which grows wild in Sicily and is also to be found on the Atlas Mountains.”
It’s equally fun to point out T. gesneriana, from which come all Breeder, Cottage, and Darwin tulips. I remember it growing in my mother’s garden for 20 years.
Unique Tulips
It’s too bad, of course, that more people don’t plant and enjoy these uniquely beautiful tulips. Still, until they do, we can’t deny the sly, eye-twinkling satisfaction of having something lovely not yet discovered by our friendly rivals.
The astonishment on visitors’ faces when they behold the fantastically-twisted red and yellow petals of T. acuminata, delights us quite as much as the flower itself.
And when it is cut and brought indoors, where it opens and closes unpredictably into varying shapes, non-botanically-minded friends can’t guess what it is.
This constant opening and closing is, to us, one of the most engaging habits of tulips. Some people don’t agree—particularly those making show arrangements for which top buds must not open or wide base flowers close before the judges arrive!
Tulip Traits
Although a characteristic of all tulips, this trait is found to the greatest degree among the species, where sheer whimsy often seems the rule! While most tulips open wide only in the heat of the sun, sweet-scented, greenish T. primulina remains indifferently closed until after noon and stubbornly wide-eyed when good little tulips are asleep.
Most star flowers close immediately when picked and resentfully refuse to reopen more than halfway.
T. clusiana, however, is flattered to be brought indoors, where the pointed red buds slowly unfurl to a lovely red and white striped cup.
Tulipa Sylvestris
Our cutting favorite is T. sylvestris (T. Florentina odorata). The wonderful yellow glow under the lamplight, its perfume of sweet violets steals about the room, and one can almost see it breathe.
As its nodding head turns slowly on a graceful stem, the petals open and close in sensitive response to unheard commands.
Boasting unusually long stems and large blooms, T. sylvestris makes a pretty partner for pansies, primroses, bleeding-heart, and forget-me-nots in old-fashioned bouquets.
Planting Time For Tulips
Planting time for tulips is from November on. T. sprengeri is an exception. The last tulip to flower (often in June), this red and buff species perversely demands to be planted first—as soon as bulbs arrive.
Most species of tulips demand a sunny bed with well-drained gritty soil containing lime. We plant our bulbs 6 to 8 inches deep—or about three times their diameter and then some.
A bit of compost, mixed with a handful of bone meal and half as much 5-10-10, goes in the hole first, then soil and the bulb. Those with fur-lined jackets like to be tucked into a pocket of sand. Golden, starry chrysantha is one of these and is worth the extra trouble.
Once bulbs are established, we fertilize them (after blooming) about every three years with two parts bonemeal to one part 5-10-10.
Agreeable T. kaufmanniana (water-lily tulip) thrives even under ordinary garden conditions, while T. sylvestris will grow in open woodlands or fine grasslands. The latter also stays contentedly on the border even when weeds or leafy plants grow over it.
This is something others resent—as we learned when T. fosteriana and T. praestans practically disappeared from our garden and had to be replaced.
Red Tulip Species
For who could do without little praestans, whose two or three orange-red flowers on tallish stems create their perfect flower arrangement?
For the large magnificent vermilion fosteriana with its striking black and yellow eye? We must agree with Dr. Asa Gray (“New Manual of Botany”) that a clump of these tulips on a dark, wet day looks like a patch of brilliant sunshine.
The enormous red species are undoubtedly the most popular, especially with men.
Reginald Farrer described T. praecox wonderfully: “The outsides of the flower are blurred and dead and dull . . . like the underside of a butterfly’s wing, in no way preparing one for the satiny fury of pure scarlet that presently unfolds, staring out into the world with a menacing pupil of blackness.”
Much the same could be said of the fosteriana varieties RED EMPEROR, the largest of all tulips and shorter-stemmed. Still, among the reds, our heart belongs to dainty T. linifolia.
Although small, its brilliance is jewel-like rather than overpowering. Its purple center and anthers, with only the yellow pinwheel of the stigma for accent, please us more than the bolder patterns.
Other Tulip Color Species
A yellow charmer is T. batalini, thought by some to be a color form of T. linifolia. The same dwarf size and shape, with the same silvery blue-green leaves, is a soft primrose.
Tulipa batalini BRONZE CHARM is larger, with wider and even more silvery leaves.
Our garden has a bronze center and rosy-flushed outer segments, but we hear it is sometimes flushed with salmon or bronze.
The buds of all three are intriguing. From a rather flat base, four sides fuel to a straight, tight point. T. linifolia looks like a strawberry stuck on a long stem! BRONZE CHARM has a broader base, and so makes a fatter package, promising a special surprise.
Tulipa batalini forms new bulbs at the end of vertical stolons, and Gray suggests planting it in deep seed pans if you wish to increase your stock. This controls stoloniferous growth and simplifies collecting the bulbs.
Tulipa kaufmanniana has the same habit of dropping the new bulbs a good 6” inches below the parent plant.
When trying to move the bulbs, if they seem to have disappeared, keep on digging, or next year they will pop up unexpectedly in the middle of your new planting.
From this cream, gold, and carmine water-lily tulip have come many exciting hybrids in beautiful color combinations. GAIETY is a yellow-centered white -with red and yellow outer segments.
The taller MAGNIFICENT is white and yellow with red markings. SCARLET ELEGANCE quite lives up to its name, as does AUREA, a rich gold with red markings inside and out.
Leaves are broad, anti-curved, slightly furry, and striped with purple when young. They make a perfect setting for the low but large and glowing cup.
Kaufmanniana Varieties To Try
There are many other kaufmanniana varieties to try someday, but being collectors and partial to originals, we first must get those other species we’ve heard about but never seen:
- T. greigi, not because we need another large scarlet but because its pale foliage “splashed and streaked with reddish brown” sounds so interesting.
- Small tri-flowered T. hageri, to see if it is copper-colored and to make up our minds about its disputed attractions.
Mrs. Louise Beebe Wilder says. “One would by no means go off one’s head about its charms.” Others call it royal! Mauve, chalice-shaped T. saxatilis because some top growers say they can’t get it to bloom. A challenge no gardener can ignore!
Gray had the same experience with it, but after three years says. “I happened to him at J. Henry Correvon’s Nursery in Geneva where they were flowering as freely as crocuses, and I asked him his secret.
He replied. ‘A very simple secret—patience!’ I now have a large patch in my rock garden covered with bloom every spring.” Well, plant this fall and report in four years!
Then we must have Vermilion T. wilsoniana just so we can say. “That tulip was collected in Transcaspia. What, you don’t know where Tianscaspia is? Why just southwest of Asterahad!” A bonus attraction indeed is the fact that these flowers all come from far-off romantic-sounding places.
As Mrs. Wilder aptly puts it. “The wild species open up to its whole world of venture and adventure, calling it from the beaten track to little winding paths into the unknown.” Good hunting!
44659 by Marion Rowley And Mary Alice Roche