The bulbs we plant in fall are uninteresting-looking objects, but they hold beneath their dull exterior the promise of great beauty next spring. Tulips are probably the most popular and widely used of all bulbs.
A better understanding of the kinds of tulips available and their particular place in the landscape will give the home gardener a longer succession of blooms and an opportunity to plan for a better arrangement of size and color.
Perhaps we are least familiar with the species tulips. For the most part, they are shorter, smaller, and earlier to flower than the better-known tulips.
To my mind, at least, they are the only tulips suitable for naturalizing.
They flower with early bulbs such as grape hyacinths (muscari), guinea hen flowers (Fritillaria meleagris), and narcissus.
Like all the early-flowering plants, they are particularly welcome because they bring a foretaste of the future beauty.
Tulipa Kaufmanniana Hybrids
Dainty Tulipa kaufmanniana and its hybrids come mostly in pink, white, and carmine.
Some seem too short of the stem in proportion to the cup-shaped flower.
Tulips fosteriana and Tulipa eichleri are bright vermilions and scarlet, while Tulipa praestans come in orange, scarlet, or vermilion, usually with several graceful flowers on a stem.
These three kinds, mixed together and accompanied by grape hyacinths or pale Barri and poet’s narcissus, make a brilliant group for early spring planting.
The Kaufmanniana hybrids and the small candy-striped Tulipa clusiana are dainty in effect and best planted close to a house door or a path under Magnolia stellata, near Viburnum carlesi or other pink or white flowering shrubs of early spring.
A conversation piece near a walk is a late species, Tulipa viridiflora, which is pale green with waved petals.
It is particularly graceful in form, and the color’s strangeness always causes comment.
Tulipa Sylvestris
Tulipa sylvestris is a graceful, fragrant flower in pale yellow, good with primroses and grape hyacinths.
Most species of tulips increase yearly and should be left undisturbed until they begin to form oversized colonies.
They belong in rock gardens, naturalized under shrubs, or occasionally in the garden around late-blooming perennials or die-back shrubs such as abelia, vitex, or buddleia.
Triumph Tulips
For general garden use, the tulip season starts with a too-little-known type, the Triumph tulip.
This is a cross between the single early and the Darwin tulip; it has the shape of the Darwins but flowers about 2 weeks earlier.
Around New York or in sections of the country with similar conditions, the single or double early tulips are likely to be frostbitten. They are therefore not too valuable in these areas.
Conversely, the Triumph comes into flower at a time when narcissism is fading and before the big tulips have begun to bloom.
The list of Triumphs is increasing every year as gardeners become more familiar with them.
JOHANNA is particularly good, a lovely salmon pink of about 20″ to 22″ inches in height.
KANSAS is the best white and CRATER is a very dark red. These make a handsome group in late April or early May.
LORD CARNARVON is an excellent clear pale pink Triumph tulip with a white edge.
ELISABETH EVERS, a deep carmine rose, combines well with LORD CARNARVON and the carmine red CHICAGO.
PICCADILLY and ELMUS are cherry-red with white edges on the petals striking in individual groups.
BANDOENG, a dark mahogany red, BRUNO WALTER, orange-yellow, and URSA MINOR, deep yellow in an entirely different color group.
These are more or less the same coloring as the later-flowering Breeder tulips and, like these, must be used with caution where there is any pink, rose red, or red in the vicinity.
In the flower garden or flower border, Triumph tulips along the front edge of the bed with the Breeder, Cottage, and Darwin varieties behind them, give a succession of tulip bloom for 3 or 4 weeks instead of the 2 weeks which would be possible from only one of these groups.
They frequently overlap the later tulips’ season, so the color schemes must be worked out carefully.
Flower Garden Show In May
The main show of May in any flower garden is provided by the Cottage, Darwin, and Breeder tulips.
They are completely interchangeable for landscape purposes, and the catalogs that list them together are much easier to manage.
The color range is so wide that any scheme is possible. Breeder tulips mostly come in yellow, copper, bronze, and purple varieties, with a brown or yellow overlay on almost all shades.
All the Breeder tulips blend in the same way as the familiar annual salpiglossis, which blooms in midsummer.
The Breeder tulips are also excellent with the yellows, oranges, and clear purples of the Cottage and Darwin tulips, but they are too brilliant for most pinks and reds.
For the most part, the Cottage tulips are delicate in color, but only the specialist can differentiate between Darwin and Cottage tulips for garden use.
Among the Cottage tulips, several fine varieties from 20” to 24” inches high are particularly good in small gardens.
Darwins have more range of height, form, and color.
May-flowering tulips may be used in mixed groups of pale yellow, pink lavender, and a dark variety, or they may be ranged from white to very dark shades in the length of the border, each variety being used in a separate group.
May-Flowering Tulips
If the May-flowering tulips are used in combinations, one particular variety should predominate in each group.
In other words, if the combination is the short and inexpensive one of CLARA BUTT (salmon), REVEREND EWBANK (lavender), LEMON QUEEN (pale yellow), and LA TULIPE NOIRE (dark purple), CLARA BUTT should take up about 50% percent of the group, LA TULIPS NOIRE, 10% percent and each of the others, 20% percent.
One particular caution might be observed in making tulip combinations: the pink in tulips is definitely a rose pink or salmon pink, and the two kinds of pinks badly conflict if used together.
All the pink types are:
- ROSABELLA
- MR. VANZIJL
- PRINCESS ELIZABETH
- ROSEA SUPERBA
All the salmon pink are:
- ADORATION
- PRIDE OF ZWANENBURG
- SMILING QUEEN
- CLARA BUTT
They are salmon pink but turn a deep rose pink as they fade.
They must be used with great caution, for the color schemes will change too much in a combination.
Both pinks may be used with a very pale yellow, such as LEMON QUEEN, MRS. SCHEEPERS or BELRAY, the rose pinks must not have golden yellows near them.
The rose pinks and the black or rosy purples are the best dark tulips.
These include:
- ZULU
- LA TULIPE NOIRE
- VELVET KING
With the salmon pinks, brownish-black tulips such as FAUST or QUEEN OF THE NIGHT are ‘better.
Lily-Flowered Tulips
One other group of tulips, the lily-flowered, is effective in the garden.
These bloom simultaneously as the rest of the May-flowering garden and are a cross between the Cottage retroflexa tulip and the Darwin.
Mostly, they are shorter, and their flowers are smaller than the Darwin, Breeder, and Cottage tulips.
Their curled-back petals give them a particularly graceful form.
PICOTEE and SIRENE are older pink and white varieties that have never been surpassed.
WHITE DUCHESS and WHITE CROSS are excellent white varieties. THE BRIDE and WHITE ENSIGN are creamy yellow, fading to pure white.
ADONIS and RHODES are rose pinks, good with PICOTEE and SIREN E. MARIETTE is new salmon pink.
Yellow-Orange Tulip Varieties
Relatively new in this group are the yellow-orange varieties.
For brilliance, GOLDEN DUCHESS or ARKADIA (golden yellow) can be planted with STANISLAUS (orange) or LA NI ERVEILLE (orange scarlet).
The newer FASCINATION (sulphur yellow) with creamy THE BRIDE and purple CAPTAIN Farm is less flashy.
The lily-flowered varieties should be interplanted only with each other and not mixed in with the taller garden tulips.
Groups at the front of a border or on either side of a path with taller cup-shaped Darwin and Cottage tulips behind them give good gradation of height through the borders.
Excellent Varieties For Cutting Flowers
All tulips are outstandingly delicate cutting flowers, but two kinds are better for cutting than for general garden display:
- The late double, or peony-flowered
- The exotic Parrot tulips
To many people, any double tulip is anathema, as the purity of the single form is too rare in the flower world.
The peony-flowered tulips are heavy-headed and need staking in windy locations.
Parrot tulips are startling with their bizarre, feathered petals and unusual color-striping.
They are still inclined to be too weak-stemmed for their huge blossoms and are best planted primarily for cutting.
If they are used in a garden, they should never be interplanted with the tulips of conventional form but should be used in small isolated groups as conversation pieces or accents.