"I decided that if I could paint that flower in a huge
scale, you could not ignore its beauty." - Georgia O'Keeffe
It seems as though all the subtlety of Spring, with its soft pastels and misty greens, is suddenly blown asunder by the arrival of these brash tulips!
Easy to understand how artists have been inspired - and 17th century collectors driven mad - by the vivid combinations of shape and saturated colour.
This is a flower that can appear so delicate and subdued on a dull morning, petals closed and elegantly streamlined, only to throw open her skirts in the heat of a sunny afternoon, revealing hidden depths of a completely different hue!
These three photographs reflect the changing moods of one tulip, "Apricot Emperor", which we used in planting up a copper container last autumn.
There are two more containers of bulbs yet to flower and I guess we're probably about halfway through the tulip season. We've had a few surprises pop up in the border too... bulbs which probably came from the 'Tulips Against Cancer' charity, where you buy a flowering bunch with bulbs still attached. This might account for the occasional pinks and yellows!
We rather enjoy these odd splashes of colour as they light up beds which are mostly full of greenery at this stage, and they have the gaiety of poppies when their petals are fully open and flamboyant.
Tulips form clumps quite quickly in our garden and need dividing every three years or so. The larger ones produce a lot of leaf which is why we prefer to put them in containers, even though it means the bulbs will have to be lifted and stored later on.
But it also means you have plenty of flowers for cutting and giving away, which is a good thing!
Just a single specimen can make an effective table arrangement when teamed with other early bloomers such as primula, narcissi, cerinthe and muscari.
I really prefer smaller botanical tulips for naturalising in the garden. We started with Tulipa turkestanica, which featured in last month's post and has now gone over, to be followed by Tulipa clusiana "Peppermint Stick", a taller, single-flowered variety.
Also known as "The Lady Tulip", clusiana is very slender and stylish when her petals are still tightly wrapped in the early morning.
Gradually she unfolds herself, revealing that her petals are pure white inside with just a hint of the exterior pink showing through.
Finally, these petals open right up like a magnolia flower and you see that the centre is a shade of deep plum - almost black - with contrasting yellow stigma (that eggy bit in the middle). Small but spectacular!
As long as your bed is in a sunny position with free-draining soil, these tulips can be left in the ground to spread - either by seed or by producing offsets.
Although this spring has been particularly wet and windy, I have to say that even the taller varieties of tulip have stood up well to bad weather.
Their sensible strategy is to remain shut when it pours with rain and, if anything, the colours seem to intensify on dull days - a good time to photograph them in fact.
In his bulb book, Dr Hessayon recommends that both flowers and foliage can be removed from garden tulips once they fade... thus depriving snails of a good meal but avoiding lots of mess in your border!
As an antidote to tulipomania, we've been exploring local woodland to find early wild flowers like pulmonaria and wood anenome, which have also done well in this damp spring.
We came across some lovely drifts of Anenome nemorosa which bloom on the sunlit forest floor whilst waiting for the trees above to come into leaf.
My wild flower book tells me that its spreading habit means that a group of 100 flowering stems can actually belong to a single plant!
Our garden is too dry for such a delicacy but - from a distance - we've created something similar by planting Vinca minor as a ground-cover under shrubs, hoping it will keep the dreaded ivy at bay.
At this time of year it produces a host of starry white flowers that stand out nicely against its evergreen leaves.
Whilst walking through woodland, we came across several butterflies taking advantage of sunlit glades and spring flowers.
Here a brimstone has attached itself to some Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis), a plant that nearly always has blue flowers in the wild, although we did come across a white version similar to the cultivar called "Sissinghurst".
If our little garden in the valley were a huge estate, with an awkward area of waterlogged land, then I'd be sorely tempted to establish a plantation of aspens.
I adore these trees and I guess they've been emblematic of the French countryside ever since Impressionist painters set up their easels beside rivers and lakes.
In winter and early spring their silver-white trunks and delicate branches have a magical ability to reflect light and transmit the rushing of wind.
Aside from being able to thrive in boggy places, aspen wood is said to be resistant to boring insects so it's often used in construction of roofs, providing local farmers with a relatively fast-growing crop of timber.
 |
| Tulip "Apricot Emperor" |
These three photographs reflect the changing moods of one tulip, "Apricot Emperor", which we used in planting up a copper container last autumn.
There are two more containers of bulbs yet to flower and I guess we're probably about halfway through the tulip season. We've had a few surprises pop up in the border too... bulbs which probably came from the 'Tulips Against Cancer' charity, where you buy a flowering bunch with bulbs still attached. This might account for the occasional pinks and yellows!
 |
| Tulips with cerinthe |
Tulips form clumps quite quickly in our garden and need dividing every three years or so. The larger ones produce a lot of leaf which is why we prefer to put them in containers, even though it means the bulbs will have to be lifted and stored later on.
Just a single specimen can make an effective table arrangement when teamed with other early bloomers such as primula, narcissi, cerinthe and muscari.
I really prefer smaller botanical tulips for naturalising in the garden. We started with Tulipa turkestanica, which featured in last month's post and has now gone over, to be followed by Tulipa clusiana "Peppermint Stick", a taller, single-flowered variety.
Also known as "The Lady Tulip", clusiana is very slender and stylish when her petals are still tightly wrapped in the early morning.
Gradually she unfolds herself, revealing that her petals are pure white inside with just a hint of the exterior pink showing through.
 |
| Tulipa clusiana "Peppermint Stick" |
As long as your bed is in a sunny position with free-draining soil, these tulips can be left in the ground to spread - either by seed or by producing offsets.
Their sensible strategy is to remain shut when it pours with rain and, if anything, the colours seem to intensify on dull days - a good time to photograph them in fact.
In his bulb book, Dr Hessayon recommends that both flowers and foliage can be removed from garden tulips once they fade... thus depriving snails of a good meal but avoiding lots of mess in your border!
 |
| Anenome nemorosa |
A Walk on the Wild Side
As an antidote to tulipomania, we've been exploring local woodland to find early wild flowers like pulmonaria and wood anenome, which have also done well in this damp spring.
We came across some lovely drifts of Anenome nemorosa which bloom on the sunlit forest floor whilst waiting for the trees above to come into leaf.
My wild flower book tells me that its spreading habit means that a group of 100 flowering stems can actually belong to a single plant!
 |
| Vinca minor alba or Periwinkle |
At this time of year it produces a host of starry white flowers that stand out nicely against its evergreen leaves.
Here a brimstone has attached itself to some Lungwort (Pulmonaria officinalis), a plant that nearly always has blue flowers in the wild, although we did come across a white version similar to the cultivar called "Sissinghurst".
 |
| Populus tremula |
I adore these trees and I guess they've been emblematic of the French countryside ever since Impressionist painters set up their easels beside rivers and lakes.
In winter and early spring their silver-white trunks and delicate branches have a magical ability to reflect light and transmit the rushing of wind.
 |
| Catkins on an aspen |
Aside from being able to thrive in boggy places, aspen wood is said to be resistant to boring insects so it's often used in construction of roofs, providing local farmers with a relatively fast-growing crop of timber.
This is another tree decorated with masses of catkins, though they're often hard to see at 15 meters high!
It might be stunning to grow in a big garden but unfortunately the roots produce extensive suckers which can be particularly annoying if they come up in your lawn.
As you can deduce from its Latin name, the aspen is a type of poplar which, in turn, is part of the willow family - hence their affinity with water and those catkin-like flowers. In our area there are two or three other types of poplar - all very beautiful trees - which I'll endeavour to write about later this year.
It might be stunning to grow in a big garden but unfortunately the roots produce extensive suckers which can be particularly annoying if they come up in your lawn.
As you can deduce from its Latin name, the aspen is a type of poplar which, in turn, is part of the willow family - hence their affinity with water and those catkin-like flowers. In our area there are two or three other types of poplar - all very beautiful trees - which I'll endeavour to write about later this year.
 |
| Narcissus actaea (or Pheasant's Eye) with Narcissus albus plenus odoratus |
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