Tiptoe through your own masterpiece
Where do you go if you want to see spectacular displays of tulips in spring? There’s no better place than Holland’s famous Keukenhof Garden, south of Amsterdam. From mid- April into May, this garden offers a floral show featuring more than seven million flowering spring bulbs, including thousands of tulips. Enormous sweeps of red, yellow, pink, purple, white and orange tulips form the banks of long meandering rivers of blue muscari and dense plantings of super- scented hyacinths. If the shock impact of the dynamic colour doesn’t send your head into a spin, try contemplating the work involved in planting seven million bulbs every fall. You can create your own tribute to the Keukenhof next spring by ordering our Connoisseur Tulip Collection, part of The Vancouver Sun Garden Collection series, which we are bringing to you with the help of our retail partners, Botanus, the Langley- based plant mail- order company. The collection comprises ‘ Mango Charm’ ( 8), ‘ Moulin Rouge’ ( 8), ‘ Pittsburgh’ ( 8), ‘ Miami Sunset’ ( 8) and White Haven’ ( 8). These are some of the best and most reliable tulips on the market. They will flower from April to early May, growing to about 50 cm ( 20 inches) high. ‘ Mango Charm’ was introduced in 2012. The colour changes from a soft orange to peachy pink tones with a light flush of yellow. ‘ Moulin Rouge’ opens creamy white with striking raspberrypink accents and matures to the point where all the petals turn cherry pink, rose and crimson. ‘ Pittsburgh’ is a showstopper with petals that are a blend of plum purple and raspberry red atop a creamy white base. . ‘ Miami Sunset’ has fringed pink petals edged with apricot. The colours are reminiscent of the sunset on Miami’s Sunset Strip. ‘ White Haven’ is a beautiful white tulip valued as a superb cut flower, with a light fragrance. What a lot of gardeners want to know is how to keep their tulips re- blooming year after year. This has everything to do with where you plant — location, soil conditions and most important, soil temperature and moisture level. The problem we coastal gardeners mostly run into is that we like to mix tulips in perennial borders, or in flower beds that later in spring get replanted with summer annuals. What tulips need after flowering is warm, dry, fast- draining sandy soil where they can go dormant and get to work on their rejuvenation process. They don’t get this rest period in most coastal gardens. Sprinklers are hauled out or irrigation systems are turned on in late May or June and flower beds and borders are continually watered through summer. The soil becomes too moist and cold. Tulip bulbs hate this combination. It totally disrupts the bulb’s regeneration cycle. In the Netherlands, acres of tulips are only allowed to bloom for a short time. Flower heads are snipped before they fade and plants are left in fields to soak up sunshine through their leaves. By the end of May, when fields turn brown as the tulip foliage dies down, bulbs are carried into sheds to be dried. This allows the outer skin to crinkle and the layer underneath to develop a nice shiny surface. Next, bulbs are put into a peeling machine. Bulbs are then sorted according to size. The next phase is called “stage- G.” Bulbs are left to rest in sand and kept at a perfect temperature until they reach the critical stage- G — the moment when if you were to slice a bulb in half you would be able to see under a microscope the perfectly formed flower for next year. This is so important because it means that not only are the bulbs ready to be shipped, they are also ready to be put through a cold treatment process to produce cut flowers for winter. When we plant tulips we have to ensure we put them where they can reach the critical regenerative stage- G in summer. The ideal location would be a warm, sunny bank or exposure with plants such as warmseason grasses or sedums that require minimal watering. The drier the area the better. If you have sprinklers, irrigating your flower beds throughout summer, you can’t expect your tulips to reach stage- G and re- bloom the following year. Here’s how to order your Connoisseur Tulip Collections. Go to www. vancouversun. com/ garden.