My Tulip U-Turn: The Spring Surprise I Never Expected

Well, I’ve made a complete fool of myself again. After two years of muttering about tulips, loving them and hating them all at once, this year I gave them their last chance, loudly declaring that if they didn’t come good it would definitely be divorce. Yet here I am, utterly smitten and planning to renew my vows.

There, I’ve said it and I hope you can forgive me for writing about tulips when I know you might have reached your limit with all the photos of them flooding gardening feeds these past few weeks. Trust me, after failing to grow perfect blooms myself these past two years, I’ve sometimes found this floral phantasmagoria a smidge annoying too. But something extraordinary has happened in my garden, and I simply HAVE to share! I’m hoping my perspective will either rekindle your love affair with these glamorous springtime divas, or at the very least, raise a smile.

Those fiery blooms under the rhododendrons? Just when I swore I was done with tulips forever? Well it seems that tulips across my garden – whether in my experimental pots or the borders – have staged the most SPECTACULAR comeback this spring. And I’ve been completely won over.

I’m dedicating this newsletter to these botanical sirens and why they’ve captured my heart again. But first, let me explain how we got here...

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A quick thank you to my paid subscribers who make My Real Gardens possible! After swearing off tulips for good, this spring they staged the most unexpected comeback in my garden – and I’m utterly smitten again.

If you’re enjoying these free peeks over my garden fence, the full newsletter includes:

· My complete tulip reconciliation story - including a cheeky garden confession

· My top 10 tulip varieties with growing notes and links

· Our British Library exhibition news

· This weekend’s live garden tour details

Your subscription (less than a bag of compost monthly) helps keep this garden conversation growing. Now, let me tell you about my tulip betrayal turned love story...

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The Great Tulip Betrayal

If you’re new here, let me give you the backstory so you can catch up. For two consecutive springs, I’d battled what I strongly suspect was tulip fire. After the first year of disappointment, despite all my precautions and back breaking work (I have around 20 large pots which were completely emptied, freshly filled with compost, all with surgical levels of cleanliness, followed by late planting to avoid the worst of the autumn wet) – my tulips emerged looking bedraggled and disease-spotted AGAIN. I’d spent a small fortune on bulbs only to watch them struggle pathetically toward bloom, then flop over covered in spots and blisters.

I declared myself finished with them. “Too expensive! Too much work! Too shortlived! Too much faff for too little reward!” I told anyone who’d listen (which was mainly my husband Jules who simply rolled his eyes and I think got ready for the inevitable bank statement to come through once I’d changed my mind).

I decided to eschew them completely, planting lasagne pots with Iris reticulata, scilla, muscari, daffodils and fistfuls of Anemone ‘Mr Fokker’ corms. These pots of plenty have been nothing short of sensational this spring – starting with delicate Iris reticulata in February, followed by hoop petticoat daffodils, then a cornucopia of narcissi playing beautifully with the deep cobalt blue of Anemone ‘Mr Fokker’. The whole lot is still blooming after two months, with the viola and wallflowers now coming into their own. I was supremely satisfied with myself and my newfound daffodil devotion. “Tulips?” I determined. “Who needs them!”

My daffs and Anemone Mr Fokker tulip replacements HAVE been amazing, but……….

And I wasn’t alone in my tulip abandonment. Many gardening friends have been tiring of them these past couple of years, including (I read here on Substack), Arthur Parkinson, my original tulip muse. When someone with his container wizardry throws in the trowel with them, you feel rather justified in your own decision to move on.

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The Unexpected Seduction

Or not. I remember the exact moment it happened. Last autumn, when I decided to give tulips one final chance. Never having succumbed to Narcissus before, I started to panic that these new pots might not be enough for my future self to revel in. That I’d miss the voluptuous shapes, the sensational colours, the beguiling EVERYTHING of the tulip that saw them reach fever pitch prices during the Dutch ‘Tulipmania’ of the 1630s. Back then, a single prized bulb could sell for more than a house in Amsterdam – imagine spending your life savings on one flower! The Dutch quite literally lost their heads over these blooms, with fortunes made and lost on tulip futures.

So I went online, trawled the Peter Nyssen catalogue at the very last minute, and placed an order for my quarantine zone out front. “They’ll probably disappoint again,” I mumbled pessimistically, but I wanted to try one last time.

My tulip pots a couple of years ago. Would the daffs live up to THIS?

And then this spring arrived with its particular heat and plentiful light, and tulips began appearing in the back garden borders where I hadn’t planted any these past two years. But instead of the sad, spotty specimens, these were glorious, sumptuous blooms that made me catch my breath, more glamorous than anything else that had bloomed in the garden for months and demanding my attention. I gave it to them readily, worshipfully even, eventually and hurriedly dashing out front to see if my late planted, containerised tulips had started to break their way up through their gritted compost topping.

In truth I’d already noticed they were coming up, and as I type today, there they stand in their vibrant glory, most of the stems straight as soldiers, petals unfurling with a voluptuousness that borders on the indecent. They’re proud, sensual and utterly magnificent.

Unbelievable really tucked as they are in the ‘rhodo quarantine zone’ – my holding area safe from potential disease out front, but tucked under the shade of a leathery rhodo canopy. WHAT a surprise!

I’d always thought tulips needed blazing sunshine to perform well, but these rebellious blooms clearly decided they were having none of it. Though they do get a smidge of early morning light, I’ve been turning the pots regularly and had intended to pull them out of their hidey-hole so they could catch more rays, but time (and a bad back – promise I’ll shut up about that soon!) meant I didn’t.

Though I admit that some of the taller purple varieties have reached a little for the sun and flopped (I’m looking at you ‘Purple Heart’ and shan’t be growing you again!), they’ve created a FABULOUS underworld of crimson, magenta and orange that positively glows against the deep green canopy. I find myself wandering out for a mo’ just to stare at them – one of the advantages of working from home while writing up the last sections of my new book. They’ll last longer under the rhodos in this heat too – who would have thought it!

Isn’t that just typical? The plants you fuss over sulk, while these neglected beauties throw the horticultural party of the year.

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The Hard-Won Wisdom of Tulip Growing

So what have I learnt from this tulip rollercoaster? A few things:

1. Perhaps my tulip fire issues were simply bad luck, perhaps it wasn’t tulip fire at all? Maybe the damp winters and springs recently caused the spots and the misery. I mean I’d have hated to be a tulip these past two years. One thing’s for sure, the drier conditions at the front of the house and under the rhododendrons, but also due to the better weather, in the borders too have made all the difference.

2. Sometimes benign neglect works wonders. Those forgotten bulbs planted out a few years ago have received no special attention, yet they’ve produced the best tulips in the borders that I’ve grown in years.

3. Gardening requires both persistence and flexibility. We must be willing to try again, but also ready to change our approach.

4. Beauty, even fleeting beauty, is worth the effort.

5. Never say never in the garden. Especially if something makes you happy.

And perhaps the biggest lesson of all? I’m going to write something rather risqué now, so perhaps cover the eyes of any innocent daffodils that might be reading over your shoulder:

The full story continues for paid subscribers, including my top 10 tulip varieties and British Library exhibition news, and details of this weekends Live garden tour.