‘Clara Butt’: Grow the Tulip, Listen to the CD

        ‘Clara Butt’ is not just one of the most famous tulips of all time, she was also a legendary contralto and Dame of the British Empire who, according to one reviewer, “was loved by her countrymen like no other singer before or since.” Thanks to a tip from our good customer Ronald Jackson of Bellbrook, Ohio, we found a half-dozen CDs of Clara for sale at Amazon, eBay, and cduniverse.com, often with audio clips that you can listen to online. They range in price from $5 to over $100 – and might make a nice gift for a gardener you know! (Aug. 2007)

Dutch Embassy Celebrates with Our ‘Zomerschoon’

        To celebrate Dutch American Heritage Day on November 16, the Dutch ambassador in Washington hosted an intimate VIP luncheon. A curator from the National Gallery lectured on Rembrandt and then each guest was presented with a very special gift from the days of Rembrandt – a ‘Zomerschoon’ tulip bulb [no longer available] from Old House Gardens!
        Julia Koppius of the ambassador’s staff reports that the bulbs were “a hit” and the guests “delighted” with this “unique, beautiful, and memorable gift.” Needless to say all of us here at Old House Gardens were thrilled to be included in the festivities! (Dec. 2006)

Spice Up Your Herb Garden with Odd, Elegant Tulipa acuminata

        With its almost thread-like petals, Tulipa acuminata is so unusual that some gardeners may be afraid to try it. So here’s a simple but inspired suggestion from one of our favorite garden writers, Vicki Johnson, writing in the New Jersey Herald:
        “A couple of years ago . . . I became infected with [Old House Gardens’] enthusiasm for rare and endangered heirlooms and smitten with one in particular, Tulipa acuminata. Acuminata . . . does look like a wildflower, and I delight in imagining myself living then, hiking on the mountain slopes of The East and discovering the flaming yellow and red petals swaying in the breeze. I planted three of the bulbs in my herb garden last year, and this past spring the thyme and oreganos provided a dusty green backdrop to the colorful, spidery and long-blooming petals.” (Sept. 2006)

Expert Surprised: Heirloom Tulip Thrives in Steamy Mobile

        Bill Finch, Mobile’s garden guru and environmental editor of the Press-Register, reported recently:
        “I had given up on any form of tulips for Mobile, until Scott beat me over the head with Old House Gardens’ selection of the old-fashioned ‘candy-striped’ species tulip, Tulipa clusiana. I’d tried various strains of this tulip before, without much success, and so gratuitously threw a few of Scott’s candy-stripers into some poor dry soil at the corner of my yard. I figured maybe my wife would get a brief kick out of them. Now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t start planting candy-stripe tulips years ago. They’ve come bursting out of the ground three springs in a row, each year better than the last.
        In an email to us, Bill added: “Yes, I really do think your clusianas are pretty solid for sharply drained, humus-poor, sandy soil in at least upper zone 9A south. And they really have had a trial by fire here: much warmer than normal winters, hot springs, and (until this year) wetter than normal summers. In the past, I believe I must have trialed one or more of the chrysantha types, perhaps ‘Cynthia’. [Ed. note: These are clusiana cousins with yellow or cream and red blooms.] I don’t believe I ever had one survive the second summer, and lost most the first.” (Aug. 2006)

Take a Peek at the 171st Annual Wakefield Tulip Show

        What do beer bottles and exquisitely beautiful tulips have in common? Every spring since 1836, tulip lovers in Yorkshire have exhibited their best feathers, flames, and breeders at the Annual Show of the Wakefield and North of England Tulip Society. For snapshots and a brief report on this year’s particularly good show, visit oldhousegardens.com/tulipshow.asp. (June 2006)

Vita of Sissinghurst Loved Clusiana

        In her 1937 book Some Flowers, Vita Sackville-West — the famous author and creator of Sissinghurst gardens — described 25 of her favorite flowers, including Tulipa clusiana:
        “The lady tulip [T. clusiana] . . . reminds one most of a regiment of little red and white soldiers. Seen growing wild on Mediterranean . . . slopes, you can imagine a Lilliputian army deployed at its spring maneuvers. I suppose her alleged femininity is due to her elegance and neatness, with her little white shirt so simply tucked into her striped jacket, but she is really more like a slender boy, a slim little officer dressed in a parti-colored uniform of the Renaissance.” (2006-07 catalog)

Classic Tulip Combos from 1918

        In her 1918 classic Color in the Garden, Louise Beebe Wilder suggests:
        late yellow tulips (try ‘Golden Harvest’) “interspersed with patches of soft lavender and deep purple aubretia,” candytuft (Iberis), sandwort (Arenaria montana), and early purple iris;
        late red and white tulips (‘Alabaster’ and ‘Lincolnshire’) backed by wisteria;
        late, light to dark purple tulips (choose at our Tulips Comparison Chart) with “silvery” creeping phlox, woodland phlox, pink thrift (Armeria), white and lavender horned violets (Viola cornuta), lambs-ear, snow-in-summer, white flax, and Nepeta mussini under redbuds or dogwoods. (2006-07 catalog)

Garden Design’s “Way Hot 100” Includes Three of Our Bulbs

        Every year in March, Garden Design magazine names their “Way Hot 100.” These are, editor Jenny Andrews says, “insiders’ top picks . . . what designers and avid gardeners are wild about this spring.” Many are brand new, but of the eleven bulbs listed this year we’re proud that three are heirlooms we offer:
        Formosa lily: “This heirloom bulb is back in vogue,” Jenny notes, and she praises its rich fragrance.
        Red spider lily, Lycoris radiata: Its “sea-urchin-like flowers” are showcased in a full-page photo. (Please note that we recommend it for zones 7-10 only).
        Tulipa clusiana: “One of the few tulips that will perennialize (especially in the South), thriving in dry soils.” (We offer the hard-to-find, original, red-and-white T. clusiana.) (Mar. 2006)

‘Beauty of Bath’ Revealed – A Tulip Mystery Story

        With primrose petals flamed purple, our ‘Beauty of Bath’ tulip is stunning. But how did it get its name? One of our favorite garden writers, Betsy Ginsburg, put on her detective cap and journeyed back to Edwardian England to investigate. Her quest, which involves antique apples and a hit musical, makes for an evocative story that I bet you’ll love.
        But don’t stop there. Betsy’s site, GardenersApprentice.com, is full of other great garden articles, tips, book reviews, and more. I especially liked her piece titled “Rose of Sharon: Still Fashionable After All These Years,” but like a good book, Betsy’s whole site is hard to quit reading. Enjoy! (Nov. 2005)

Boxer Puppies and Fragrant ‘Elegans Alba’

        Our good customer Jeananne Forgey of Swayzee, Indiana, wrote us last spring:
        “Elegans Alba just bloomed in my garden and it is the most elegant tulip I have ever seen. I rarely sniff tulips but I picked this one because we have a new boxer puppy who loves the taste of tulips, and I kept wondering after I got in the house where the wonderful smell was coming from and it is that tulip. Wow! I am always thrilled by the wonderful bulbs I order from you, but looking at this particular tulip is like looking at something that is too perfect to be real. Thanks!” (Oct. 2005)

Celebrate Rembrandt’s 400th with Our “Feathered, Flamed, Fabulous” Tulips

        Rembrandt’s 400th birthday is coming up soon, and garden writer Linda Brazill of the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, suggests planting some of “Old House Gardens’ feathered, flamed and fabulous tulips” to create “a birthday tribute worthy of the great artist.” To read Linda’s whole wonderful article about us and our “cream of the crop,” true broken tulips, click here. (Sept. 2005)

So Happy Together: Tulips and Moss Rose

        Our good customer Romualda Bielskus in zone-5 Palos Hills, Illinois, writes:
        “For a perfect cover for tulips, just scatter the seeds of moss rose, Portulaca grandiflora, after you plant your bulbs. The seeds come up by themselves, and moss rose needs little water.”
        Scott adds: That’s exactly what tulips like in the summer, “little water.” (Sept. 2005)

Back in Fashion: Fragrant Tulips and Other Scented Plants

        In a New York Times article June 9, garden guru and our friend Ken Druse writes:
        “Many of our best-loved flowers have lost their fragrance over the last half-century as hybridizers pursued traits like brighter colors, bigger flowers, compact growth or long stems. . . . But as the gardening community grows more sophisticated, and therefore more appreciative of the sensual and the subtle, smell . . . is returning to garden fashion.”
        Hooray! Many heirloom plants, of course, are richly fragrant. Start with any of our hyacinths and then check out our handy Daffodil Comparison Chart and Lily Comparison Chart for those we’ve marked as especially fragrant. Or choose “Fragrant” in our easy Advanced Bulb Search.
        Believe it or not, some heirloom tulips are deliciously scented, too. Our favorites include ‘Prince of Austria’ (best of all!), its sports ‘General de Wet’ and ‘Prinses Irene’, ‘Dillenburg’ (try it in a bouquet with early iris), ruffled ‘Orange Favorite’, double ‘Willem van Oranje’, pristine ‘Alabaster’, extra-rare ‘Elegans Alba’, and wildflowery Florentine. Have we missed any of your favorites? Please let us know! (July 2005)

Weird Old Tulips: Laughing about Our Rarest Jewels

        For a funny and informative look at our broken tulips, the Hortus Bulborum, and tulip-breaking virus, check out Amy Stewart’s May 26 column in California’s North Coast Journal at northcoastjournal.com/052605/dirt0526.html. After visiting the Hortus and falling in love with broken tulips, Amy called us to learn more about the virus that makes these tulips so beautiful. Her article will both keep you chuckling and make you a smarter gardener. (June 2005)
        [And don’t miss Amy’s fascinating 2007 book Flower Confidential.]

From 1620: “Small, Bold” ‘Lac van Rijn’

        Our good customer Rachel Ashley of Vashon, Washington, writes:
        “I got many wonderful bulbs from you last time, but the most exquisite, stunning, and surprising was the tulip ‘Lac van Rijn’. Small, bold, and commanding. I love it! I tell all my gardening friends about it and Old House Gardens. Thank you for saving old-style bulbs for us!” (2005-06 catalog)

Link of the Month: Wild Tulips

        Here’s a fascinating, home-made site devoted to the wild ancestors of our garden tulips, many of which are great garden plants in their own right: tulipessauvages.org/english_version/index.htm. Though it’s a French-language site and its English translations are sometimes a bit clunky, that only adds to its considerable charm. (Mar. 2005)

Increase Your Rarest Tulips by Growing Them in Pots

        Our good customer Rimmer de Vries has had great success in multiplying some of our oldest and rarest tulips in his zone-5b garden in Saline, Michigan. He says he learned his technique from Martha Stewart and that he’s had best success with early-blooming tulips. We can’t vouch for it ourselves, but it’s definitely working for him! Rimmer writes:
        “I use dirty builders sand (poorly sorted material) mixed with a small amount of peat/pinebark-based potting soil. Builders sand is typically found in gravel pits and used as engineered fill for foundations, etc. I don’t like the “play sand” sold at hardware stores as it is filtered to a uniform size that seems too fine.
        “Last year I added some Turface (hot fired clay used for baseball diamonds, $14 for 50 pounds which fills about a 20 gallon container) and growers grit that the bonsai people like so much (crushed granite used for hens, available at any feed store, $4 for a 50-pound bag which fills about a 5 gallon container) mixed in with the sand to improve drainage. Be careful not to make the mix too dense or heavy.
        “I place 1-2 inches of gravel on the bottom of the 2 to 5 gallon plastic pots (clay pots might work even better), add 3-4 inches of the sandy grit, mix in a healthy portion of ground bone meal (not the granular stuff), plant the bulbs, cover them with a few inches of sandy grit with bone meal, and top it off with sandy grit without bone meal to avoid attracting animals. The pots are plunged in the fall in a raised portion of the garden between perennials and mulched with shredded oak leaves in very late fall. Don’t leave the pots on top of the soil as temperatures there will be too extreme.
        “In the spring when it rains a lot, I pull the pots up and place them inside decorative pots on my front steps so they won’t act as sumps and get water-logged in my heavy clay-soil garden. They bloom there and look great.
        “In June after the foliage withers, I place the undisturbed pots (with soil and bulbs intact) on a shelf in my garage (dry and hot) until fall planting time when I replant the bulbs. Even though the pots are in the garage a long time, they retain some moisture. Turning them on their sides can help or, since tulips like to be as dry as possible when they’re dormant, it might be better to remove the bulbs from the pots after the foliage withers and hang them in mesh onion bags to avoid rot. But even leaving them in the pots, I harvest more bulbs for fall planting every year.” (Oct. 2004)

Hortus Bulborum Book Spotlights 2500 Heirloom Tulips

        Read the whole inspiring story of the Hortus and get a complete list of their vast bulb collection – including 2500 heirloom tulips – in the brand-new Hortus Bulborum: Treasury of Historical Flower Bulbs, imported from Holland and available exclusively here in the US from us! (Aug. 2004)

Love That ‘Lincolnshire’ Tulip!

        Our good customer Bill Howe of San Francisco emailed us in April:
        “‘Lincolnshire’ is stunning: thin, silky, deep-red petals that when the sun hit them seemed transformed into stained glass. And their sturdiness belies their delicate looks. Here they’ve endured a heat wave followed by a cold snap, and several rainstorms, and they’re still blooming now, after three weeks. Indestructible? Maybe. Wonderful? Definitely.”(Oct. 2003)

Our Readers Write: A ‘Zomerschoon’ Short Story

        “Peter van Hausem stared at his ‘Zomerschoon’ as one might examine a rare diamond, or a precious ruby . . . .” So starts a wonderful short story about Tulipomania, gardening, and misguided passion by our good customer Diane Dees of New Orleans. Read it all at oldhousegardens.com/ZomerschoonStory.asp. (Sept. 2003)

Too Dry? Tulips Like That!

        If you haven’t seen rain in way too long, one bit of good news is that bulbs are built for drought and most of yours should be fine. Some, like tulips and hyacinths, may even perform better than ever next spring, since they prefer dry summers – as in their ancestral homelands.
        Even tulips and hyacinths, though, need good moisture while in growth – from fall till six weeks after bloom – so be sure they get that or their performance will suffer. Newly-planted bulbs are especially vulnerable. (Sept. 2002)

Rachel’s Favorite Tulip

        Rachel Murphy, our terrific [former] VP for Customers, has a front yard filled with tulips. She writes:
        “‘Bleu Aimable’ surprised me by being the latest and longest-blooming tulip in my garden this spring. Long after my neighbors’ tulips had faded away, ‘Bleu Aimable’ was still going strong, blooming for over two weeks. Its unusual periwinkle color stood out in my borders and caused quite a few people to stop and comment on its beauty. In the catalog we say it’s 24 inches tall, but I swear that each of mine was over 30 inches. So if you enjoy hardy, uniquely-colored, late-blooming, tall tulips which will stand proudly in your garden, join me in planting ‘Bleu Aimable’ this fall!” (Sept. 2002)

Memories of ‘Clara Butt’

        Our good customer Dillon Jones of Salem, OR, writes:
        “In the mid 1920s (I am almost 86) I remember I had a small garden on an 80-acre farm, no running water or electricity. I bought some ‘Clara Butt’ tulips and was very proud of the bouquet that I gave to my mother. I remember them as the finest flowers that I ever raised.” (2002-03 catalog)

“Ancient Tulips”: Reflections from The New York Times

        In the spring of 2001, hundreds of our oldest tulips bloomed in a small display set amid block after block of massed tulips on New York’s Park Avenue. Sponsored by the Daughters of Holland Dames and the Fund for Park Avenue, this tiny living history lesson inspired Verlyn Klinkenborg, editorial-page writer for The New York Times, to devote his “In the Country” column for April 11, 2001, to these musings:
        “I know a horse trainer who says that if you could just carry square one with you, you’d never have to go back to square one. I heard that at a county fairground in eastern Wyoming, but it came back to me on Park Avenue yesterday. I was standing in the median crosswalk north of 63rd Street and there, in a small raised plot, were the first two tulips I’ve seen blooming this spring. They are a species of tulips called Tulipa schrenkii, discovered by Europeans in 1585 but native, as tulip historian Anna Pavord writes, to the steppes and low mountains of Crimea and Transcaucasia. Their presence this spring on Park Avenue indicates the growing importance of gardening with heirloom and antique plants — the botanical equivalent of carrying square one with you.
        “T. schrenkii [currently unavailable] is not a dominating tulip. It has none of the height, none of the stiffness or prominence of the hybrid tulips that surround it, and which are still only in leaf. But T. schrenkii may be one of the important progenitors of the familiar monochromatic tulips, that in another week or two will display a certain unanimity all over the city. By comparison, T. schrenkii seems almost to crouch, to withdraw. It lacks the foghorn colors of modern tulips. Its sharp-tipped petals, wine-dark but edged with yellow, resemble deep, subtle flames, and it looks as though it were meant to cover entire hillsides, not to compete with the overpowering effects of Park Avenue.
        “But back to square one. The variations that humans have wrought upon domesticated plants and animals are almost infinite. Inevitably, as time passes and fashions change, the origins that lie behind those variations grow dim and often forgotten, as do earlier variations themselves. Just as there is a necrology of long-gone buildings, so there is a necrology — a substantial one — of plant varieties and animal breeds that have been sacrificed as values and tastes have changed. With luck, the current fashion for heirloom and antique plants, embodied by T. schrenkii, will turn out not to be a fashion at all, but a continuing expression of the need for genetic conservation, for keeping the past alive in the most literal sense possible.”
        For more of Verlyn’s poetic and thought-provoking writing, click here. (2001-02 catalog)

Changing Fashions, “Conservative Instincts,” and Rediscovering Great Bulbs

        In the early 1900s, the past was all the rage. People built Colonial Revival houses and planted “grandmother’s gardens” filled with old-fashioned plants – including Darwin and Cottage tulips – rediscovered in old and often humble gardens. In his 1915 My Garden in Fall and Winter, E.A. Bowles writes:
        “We owe a vast debt of gratitude to the conservative instincts of our peasantry. Just think, for instance, how often it has happened that the weathercock of fashion has turned out the Chippendale chairs from the dining room of the Hall first to some stable loft, and then to the cottages [workers houses] on the estate to be discovered and bought back half a century later.
        “The same change of taste, or lapse and abeyance of good taste we might say, turned out the old roses and herbaceous plants to make way for showier bedding sorts. Again, Cottage Tulips, rescued from cottage gardens, are clearly the throw-outs of various tulip fanciers who discarded . . . those that would not behave just as they wished and their self-imposed rules decreed. Many a laborer in the gardens of such autocrats has [appreciated these rejected tulips and brought them home], . . . and perhaps fifty years later a Barr or a Hartland has spotted a clump of some glowing and graceful tulip, and gladly purchased the stock from the surprised tenant of the old cottage for what seemed to him untold wealth. . . .
        “Anyone with a keen eye for a good plant might do good work by keeping that eye open on cottage plots [or yards today in poorer areas both rural and urban!]. A really hardy, reliable plant of good habit is what the cottage gardener wants, and it is after all not a bad standard to set up for the larger garden, and a plant that has thriven and been found worth growing for fifty years in a cottage garden is certain to have many good qualities in it.” (2001-02 catalog)

Parrot Tulip Poetry from Vita of Sissinghurst

        In her book-length 1946 poem The Garden, Vita Sackville-West writes:
        . . . the Parrot, better called the Dragon,
        Ah, that’s a pranking feat of fantasy,
        Swirling as crazy plumes of the macaw,
        Green flounced with pink, and fringed, and topple-heavy,
        A tipsy flower, lurching with the fun
        Of its vagary. Has it strayed and fallen
        Out of the prodigal urn, the Dutchman’s canvas
        Crammed to absurdity? Or truly grown
        From a brown bulb in brown and sober soil?
        Did you catch the “fantasy” pun? Vita grew the pink and green parrot tulip ‘Fantasy’ – a sport of ‘Clara Butt’ – in her world famous gardens at Sissinghurst. (2000-01 catalog)

The English Florists’ Tulip

        The feathered and flamed tulips of Renaissance paintings live today in the gardens and shows of the Wakefield and North of English Tulip Society, founded in 1836. In this 44-page booklet, the Society offers lots of hard-to-find information about these gorgeous living relics, from their history to show standards to growing them yourself. It’s a rare tulip-lovers dream book! (1999-2000 catalog)
        [In 2002 the Society published an updated edition of this booklet under the name English Florists’ Tulips: Into the 21st Century.]

The Tulip: The Story of a Flower That Has Made Men Mad

        What a combination: sumptuous illustrations, serious history that’s actually fun to read, and a surprisingly low price. From the tulip’s early glory in the Ottoman Empire through its many incarnations in the West, Pavord tells its fascinating story with flair. With 120 full-page, antique, color illustrations, and an encyclopedia of 80 wild species and hundreds of cultivars, The Tulip is a book for every tulip lover! (1999-2000 catalog)

History’s Greatest Tulip Party?

        Tulips grow wild in Turkey, and during the early 1700s they became so prized that one modern Turkish historian has called this period “the Tulip Era.” Anna Pavord in her magnificent 1999 book The Tulip describes a party from that time I would have loved to have been invited to:
        “Under Sultan Ahmed III [who reigned 1703-1730], Turkey became a hotbed of floriculture. . . .
        “At tulip time, . . . one of the courtyards of the Grand Seraglio was turned into an open-air theatre; thousands of tulip flowers were mounted on pyramids and towers, with lanterns and cages of singing birds hung between them. Tulips filled the flower beds, each variety marked with a label of filigree silver. At the signal from a cannon, the doors of the harem were opened and the Sultan’s mistresses were led out into the garden by eunuchs carrying torches. Guests had to dress in clothes that matched the tulips (and avoid setting themselves on fire by brushing against candles carried on the backs of hundreds of tortoises that ambled around the grounds).
        “One of these tulip extravaganzas was described by . . . the French Ambassador . . . in the early 18th century. ‘The Grand Vizier. . . and others of the court have a great taste for flowers, and above all the Tulips,’ he wrote. . . ‘There are 500,000 bulbs in the Grand Vizier’s garden. When the Tulips are in flower and the Grand Vizier wants to show them off . . ., they take care to fill in any spaces with Tulips picked from other gardens and put in bottles. At every fourth flower, candles are set into the ground at the same height as the tulips, and the pathways are decorated with cages of all sorts of birds.
        “‘All the trellis-work is bordered with flowers in vases, and lit up by a vast number of crystal lamps of various colours. Greenery is brought in from the woods roundabout and used as a background behind the trellises. The colours and reflections of the lights in mirrors makes a marvelous effect. The illuminations are accompanied by noisy music and Turkish music lasts through all the nights that the tulips are in flower.’” (1999-2000 catalog)

Reducing Bulb Diversity – and Garden Worthiness

        “Forcing tulips for the cut-flower trade is now a more lucrative business than providing bulbs,” writes Anna Pavord in her masterful The Tulip, “and half the bulb fields in the Netherlands are planted with the same twenty cultivars, all of which are used to provide forced cut flowers. In fact half the cut-flower market in tulips is dominated by just ten cultivars, a hideous reductio ad absurdum for a flower that nature equipped with more than a thousand tricks.”
       And we’ll add this: As greenhouse-forced tulips have become more lucrative, the bulbs of many of these same varieties are being sold to home gardeners. The problem is that though these bulbs are great for commercial production, many are mediocre for home gardens where our conditions, needs, and desires are quite different.
       It’s the supermarket tomatoes story all over again: when plants are bred for one priority – such as long-distance shipping or greenhouse forcing – other virtues such as taste or garden-worthiness are often lost. (1999-2000 catalog)

Florentine Tulips: Living Relics in Pennsylvania-Dutch Country

        Our good customer Doris Goldman of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, writes of the graceful little yellow Forentine tulip which has been in gardens since 1597 if not before:
        “At Renfrew Park in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania . . . Tulipa sylvestris grows naturalized around the 1806 Fahnestoch house. . . . This is a typical area for it to naturalize in. . . . The soil is limestone, very loose and humusy in the top 6-8 inches – typical leaf-mould woodland soil, but with heavy clay underneath. The bulbs are . . . typically a foot deep in rocky, clay soil. . . .
        “The plants do not survive in dry woods or dry sites around here. The plants at Jenkins Arboretum in Berwyn, near Philadelphia, are in such deep moist shade that no other plants grow around them. However, they also grow in some open meadows in the Philadelphia area. . . .
        “In Pennsylvania German, they’re called Dullebaune or Wildi Dullebaune, supposedly from the Persian for ‘turban.’ The petals were used to dye Easter eggs.” (1998-99 catalog)

Diary of a Tulip Lover: A.H. Ladd’s Garden Book, 1888-1895

        Alexander Ladd of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, loved tulips and planted them by the thousands. In this fascinating garden diary Ladd recorded with affection the mundane details of seven years in his Victorian garden which survives today under the care of the Moffat-Ladd House Museum. Many of his entries deal with tulips – including our ‘Duc van Tols’ and ‘Prince of Austria’ – which he dug and stored for the summer in baskets in his basement. Supplementary essays and a complete plant list add to the value of this rare document published by the Moffatt-Ladd House Museum. (1997 catalog)

Tulips in Elizabeth’s 1898 Garden: Sprightly and Enjoying Life

        One of the most popular books of the late-Victorian age was Elizabeth von Arnim’s Elizabeth and Her German Garden, first published in 1898 and recently re-issued in paperback. In it she writes of tulips – and herself:
        “I love tulips better than . . . any other spring flower; they are the embodiment of alert cheerfulness and tidy grace . . . like a wholesome, freshly tubbed young girl. . . . Their faint, delicate scent is refinement itself; and is there anything in the world more charming than the sprightly way they hold up their little faces to the sun? I have heard them called bold and flaunting, but to me they seem modest grace itself, only always on the alert to enjoy life as much as they can and not afraid of looking the sun or anything else above them in the face.” (1996 catalog)

In Praise and Defense of Early Tulips

        Louise Beebe Wilder was one of America’s most popular garden writers in the early twentieth century. In What Happens in My Garden, published in 1935, she writes in defense of Single Early tulips. (See our Tulip Comparison Chart to find some for your garden today!)
        “The Tulips known as ‘Early’ do not by any means receive the recognition that their special comeliness and usefulness merit. So many, so marvelous . . . are the Darwins, Breeders, and the Cottage varieties of the later season [which today are all lumped together as Single Lates] that too often the early-flowering kinds are quite overlooked. . . .
        “They suffer too . . . by association in our minds with pots and geometrical bedding, for which they are indeed ideally adapted. But these are not the only roles they are capable of filling with grace and distinction . . . There is a pleasant surprise awaiting those who cast precedent aside and allow this type of Tulip to play a more gracious and less formal part in the spring scene. . . .
        “I have found too, that several years of good service may be had of these early Tulips without lifting and with only a slight diminution of size, if the soil in which they are planted has not been too heavily and freshly manured. This slight falling off in size indeed seems to me no drawback, for just as I like Hyacinths best when a few years of border life have reduced their obese opulence, so I like Tulips (this is rank heresy, I know) when they have lost something of their self-conscious hugeness and take their places a bit more simply in the garden scene. . . .” (1995 catalog)

For articles on other topics, see our main Newsletter Archives page.