All things tulip
This year is as contrary as ever. My tulip bulbs arrived weeks ago, but the cold did not. I would always prefer to wait until after a frost to plant my bulbs but the dahlias are still unblackened and my woodburner has only rarely been lit. I have given up waiting and I will be putting my tulip bulbs in today. It was so long ago that I ordered them that there are many I cannot picture from their names, and so I have spent a bit of time playing with combinations on Pinterest. This is really helpful for planting planning generally, just create a Pinterest board with all of the different elements, and if they don't go together on the screen, they really won't go together in a pot or a border. I do have to be a bit careful with just planting all my bulbs together; although my taste is quite asthetically strong (for that, read very narrow, mostly brown, and I am very fussy about my colours) I do often have a reckless moment where I just throw in some strong colours or, god forbid, pinks. This year the offending variety is Helmar. I have no idea why I bought 25 of these. I am sure they will look great as a bold statement on their own, but mixed in with the deep, subtle, earthy tones of the rest of my collection, they will be horrendous.
And so I have created a Pinterest board to check for clashes, to muse upon combinations, to admire the beauty of tulips, and just to remind myself that spring will one day come. I come back again and again to Arne Maynard's Burnt Toffee colours (this link downloads a pdf of the Gardens Illustrated article), but the actual varieties that I include have shifted and changed over the years. Sometimes to ring the changes, sometimes because I have left it too late to put my order in and the actual ones I wanted have sold out. Which is why I have Burgundy rather than Ronaldo this year.
Although tulips do really well in my soil, I am planting the bulk of mine in containers. They will be split between the big galvanised troughs in the courtyard, and the recycling boxes in the greenhouse. This is partly because of the tulip fire that I fear may have contaminated the flower field but also because they are much easier to protect from the voles if they are in boxes. I have a reel of the narrower spaced chicken wire ready to put on top as soon as the bulbs are in. Blink and they'll be gone. I lost every single crocus bulb last year and I still haven't got over it. I also like putting them in boxes because I can move them into shade as they come into bud and you can get really long stems that way.
Other things to remember: A scoop of grit rarely goes amiss. Plant deeper than you think, and in bigger pots than you think. You can get a lot of bulbs in one pot, but they do need a bit of depth for their roots. This pot is absolutely not big enough, but it was all I had, and stumpy white parrot tulips are better than no white parrot tulips.
