Unfortunately my plans to tick a visit to the Amsterdam Tulip fields off my list went awry this year. I have consoled myself with my tulips from Worthing. I am more than delighted with the display and the thought I had gone overboard buying bulbs last year but it has proved me wrong. You can never buy too many tulip bulbs!
As well as using containers, I planted bulbs in the open border and these are Sweetheart, Purissima and Yellow King with a few pink Botanical mixed. They have combined well with the white narcissi Botanical Thalia.
On the side patio the containers have tulips left over from last year – the pink are Angelique which are not as good this year. The lovely red are Tulip Kaufmanniana and you can see there is also a white one. The yellow/white Tulip is Sweetheart and I think is a perfect partner with narcissi.
There is one solitary Grand Perfection left over from last year. I like this one so will make a not to buy more for 2018. I grew them in 2016 with Ronaldo and the combination was quite striking.
This interesting tulip is a double fringed variety called Bastia – it isn’t quite open so as I write this on a Sunday morning I can’t show it to its full glory, but if you check out the link you will see what it will look like. I suspect it’s a tulip equivalent of Marmite, you will love it or hate it.
I found this year that the tulips took a while to open but once open, the petals fell quite quickly. Perhaps it’s because it’s been really quite warm this last week. I hope you’ve liked what you see and would be interested in seeing your favorite tulips to give me some ideas for 2018.