The Daily Telegraph | How To Make Tulip Season Last Longer, And Blaze More Brightly
March 9, 2024
Spring’s most colourful bulbs are about to bloom. Clare Coulson visited author and specialist grower Polly Nicholson on her Wiltshire estate, to find out how she selects and cultivates her tulips.
Polly Nicholson was already developing her small organic flower farm, the Wiltshire-based Bayntun Flowers, when, in 2015, she set eyes upon ‘Dom Pedro’ – a Dutch Historic tulip in deepest mahogany that stole her heart and kick-started a growing odyssey. “I’ve regretted that moment ever since,” says Nicholson jokingly, of her introduction to the world of specialist tulips. It began with that luscious brown flower, and rapidly progressed into an all-out obsession through which she has amassed the National Collection of “historic” tulips, which includes both Dutch Historics and English Florists’ tulips.
At Blacklands, an ancient estate at the foot of the Marlborough Downs, Nicholson’s elegant Georgian house is surrounded by a series of walled gardens and a coach house where she runs her cut-flower business. In spring, tulips steal the show: planted in grass verges, where they become part of a wild tapestry of spring flowers; in huge containers that are dotted all around the house and throughout the sheltered microclimate of the walled gardens; and, of course, in her growing field, where ranks of stems are arranged in rivers of sweet-shop colours.
And now she has gathered all her growing knowledge into The Tulip Garden, a book that breaks down the hugely complex groups and divisions of tulips into a luscious guide that covers species tulips, Dutch historics, English Florists’ tulips and the modern hybrids or annual tulips, that most of us select from the irresistible catalogues that start landing on our doorsteps in late summer.
Nicholson devotes a chapter to each area, giving an overview of the group before detailing how she grows them at home, in borders, containers, grassland or, in some cases, gravel. It’s an exhaustive and thorough guide. For tulip fanatics, the book is a trove of specialist planting experience, desirable varieties and the deeply personal story of Nicholson’s journey to discover the most wonderful tulips to grow. Her avid pursuit of the rarest bulbs (the oldest in her collection dates from 1595) appeals to both her fastidious and bookish nature; she retrained in horticulture at the English Gardening School but her first career was as a specialist in the book department at Christie’s, and she comes from a long line of booksellers and binders. But gathering the most covetable tulips also appeals to her collecting instinct: “Hunting for them becomes an obsession,” she says. “And I’ve formed a relationship with them so I want to keep this community together to keep it going.”
These flowers are, of course, nothing like those cellophane-wrapped, chemical-dipped bunches in supermarkets and on garage forecourts – these are tulips with character, depth of colour, scent and form. “They’re completely incomparable,” agrees Nicholson. “The tulips within my collection have personality. And each of those personalities talks to me in a different way, so I never get bored of them.”
Her most rarified bulbs – the English Florists’ tulips – were bred during the 19th and 20th centuries and are only distributed through members of the Wakefield and North of England Tulip Society, which holds its famed annual show in May each year, at which these exquisite bowl-shaped tulips are displayed on beer bottles.
For enthusiasts – Nicholson included – the huge industrial production of annual tulip bulbs and the associated waste (these bulbs are generally disposed of after one season) present an ethical dilemma. At Blacklands she has combatted this in various ways: giving many bulbs a second life by planting them out in grassy areas, or nurturing the offsets to create the next generation of the bulbs; but also choosing the plants that are most likely to flower again.
For Nicholson, the pointed lily-flowered and viridiflora tulips have proven to be the most reliable of the ‘annual’ tulips to come back year after year. Her favourites of the former, which were first introduced in the early 20th century and then popularised in the 1940s, include the perennially popular ‘Ballerina’ as well as ‘Burgundy’, ‘White Trumphator’ and, for cutting, the elegant white ‘Tres Chic’. The viridifloras are recognisable for the streaks of green on their outer petals (which possibly allows them to photosynthesise more effectively, in turn bulking up their bulbs which enables them to reflower year after year). Nicholson has found the striking salmon-pink ‘Artist’ as well as ‘China Town’, ‘Spring Green’ and deep pink ‘Virichic’ the best performing perennials. For cutting, her favourites include ‘Doll’s Minuet’, ‘Esperanto’ and ‘Pimpernel’.
But arguably it’s the “species” tulips that provide the most appealing alternative to annual tulips, and perhaps they are the tulips of the future – even if, ironically, they are the original tulips, once grown in the wild. Their bulbs are far more resilient and less likely to succumb to increasingly prevalent diseases such as tulip fire, which was a widespread problem across the UK and Holland last summer. They will readily naturalise too and there are bulbs for borders and gravel, as well as containers.
Aesthetically, the species tulips are a completely different proposition to the tall and showy annual tulips. They tend to be smaller, more elegant and generally understated, but it’s these qualities, says Nicholson that allows them to work so well in the garden. A self-confessed maximalist, she’s learnt to appreciate more subtle forms – she credits the floral designer Shane Connolly with teaching her that often less is more (Nicholson’s tulips were among the flowers he used for the King’s Coronation last spring).
In borders, she finds the species tulips easier to plant than annual tulip bulbs: they have smaller bulbs, which allows them to be easily incorporated into herbaceous borders, and you can plant fewer of them too since they will naturalise. They also flower earlier than most tulips, and Nicholson finds that the species tulips tend to stay undisturbed by the pests, including squirrels and voles, that routinely feast on other types of tulip.
She recommends the compact and beautiful Tulipa orphanidea (Whittallii group) which has glaucous leaves. “They start off with the petals washed with khaki, and then they open out to an amazing copper colour, and hold their petals for weeks.” Other favourites are the late-flowering T. aximensis – a cherry-red tulip happily naturalising on a riverbank at Blacklands – and the delicate clusiana hybrids, including the diminutive lemon and red ‘Tinka’, which is grown in pots. In containers, she plants single varieties of species tulip, which allows them to shine, but also makes it easier to dry and repot the bulbs in autumn, or plant them out. Nicholson recommends the sweet Tulipa cretica ‘Hilde’ as another good species of tulip to start with – a tiny, elegant flower with fine foliage.
For borders, the species tulips are in many ways far easier to work with in design terms too: thanks to their finer foliage and elegant forms, they can sit harmoniously with emerging perennial plants. A favourite for Nicholson is the candy-striped ‘Peppermintstick’, a clusiana tulip that she has planted at the front of a border in her walled garden, where it flowers for weeks at a time. “You can make a massive cacophony of colour with them, yet because they’re so slender, they never look vulgar,” she says. The equally exquisite multi-headed cream and yellow Tulipa turkestanica flowers in March and will tolerate most soil types.
“People are nervous about the species tulips because they feel that they’re a bit too specialised, and what I hope my book is going to do is give people more confidence to try them,” says Nicholson. “You can start off in a container to see what you like and just buy 20 or 30. And then if you like them, you can jump in. If you find the right ones they are a complete winner.”
While many of the species tulips are beginning to flower at Blacklands, the season’s technicolour displays are yet to happen. “This is when I’m holding my breath,” says Nicholson of the moment before the full explosion of tulips is underway. “The anticipation is my favourite moment of the year. Because there’s everything to hope for with tulips.”
Caring For Tulips During The Flowering Season
With warmer, drier springs, it has become increasingly necessary to water containers early in the season, so check pots by sticking a finger beneath the surface of the compost to check for dryness. Once tulips are in active growth, feed them with liquid seaweed feed every two weeks. Use a watering can with a rose and direct the water to the base of the plant, as the feed can stain the tulips. After flowering, snap off the spent flower head at the top so all the energy can go into the bulb (rather than creating seed). The exception is Tulipa sprengeri, which should have its seed heads left intact so that it can spread via seed. With any type of tulip, keep the leaves after flowering so they can gather energy for the bulb (and any new ones that have formed) for a while before lifting and storing – unless you’re leaving the bulbs in the ground.
March 9, 2024 | The Daily Telegraph
