For us, the coming of spring is the highlight of the gardening year. The emergence of the early spring bulbs starts off a parade of color, and what is more emblematic of this seasonal change than tulips?
At Fearrington we have a long tradition of using tulips to celebrate spring. We plant almost 2,000 tulip bulbs each fall, and whether formal or casual, large or small, most of our beds have some tulips. While in our climate we can’t depend on showy tulips to reliably rebloom the second year, tulips are inexpensive and easy to plant. We treat them as annuals. Avoid shady, wet areas when planting them, but otherwise they’re reliable bloomers.
In recent years, we have also been planting different types of species tulips. These bulbs produce smaller plants than their showy cousins, but still with fragrance, good size and colorful flowers. The bonus is that here they come back year after year.
We order our bulbs in late August. The top three catalogues used are Brent and Becky’s Bulbs, Sheepers and Colorblends. Brent and Becky’s is located in southern Virginia and since they have trial gardens, we can depend on their bulbs working for us in our area. For showy tulips, our choices are mostly ones that bloom early to mid spring. We avoid later blooming tulips since they don’t like heat; several days of 80+ degrees can ruin their show (luckily, most species tulips are early to mid bloomers).
By the way, while voles and squirrels eat some tulip bulbs from time to time, deer and rabbits (of which we have many) don’t seem to eat them.
For showy tulips here are some of our latest favorites: Apricot Beauty (smells of sweet tea), Dordogne, Menton, Burgundy Lily and the maroon and yellow striped Gavota. For species (also listed as wild tulips in catalogs), we like Tulipa sylvestris (sunny yellow with fragrance), T. clusiana ‘Lady Jane’ (lovely pink and white), T. turkestanica (star shaped buttery yellow), and T. whittallii (tall orange colored). We are big fans of the species tulips!
We’ll have several more weeks of ‘tulipmania’ in the gardens before flowering perennials and annuals start to dominate. These unique bulbs, though fleeting, are eye-catching and our best symbol of spring. Please visit and explore!