The April Cutting Garden
In April the tulip is centre stage in many gardens. “In my plot no tulips blow” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson and I can relate. Tulips are one of the world’s most recognisable flowers, found in many people’s homes and gardens. So beautiful - until they are past their best and flop over in the border in the messiest of ways. Who needs that level of stress? But it is hard to resist their beautiful colours and shapes when the bulb catalogues drop onto the doormat in July.
April is one of the best times of year in my garden. I have managed to hoe off the weeds; the shady areas at the bottom near the compost heap are filling out with bluebells, cowslips, ajuga and wild garlic; fern fronds unfurl; foxgloves begin to occupy the space at the base of our rose arch and the dahlias I potted up are beginning to sprout in a corner of the kitchen. Everything is full of possibility. No aphids; no black spot. And unlike the previous five years, I managed to plant my tulips back in November, giving them plenty of time in the cold to grow long stems.
But not in the border.
I can’t recommend enough growing tulips as a crop in trenches as opposed to spending hours placing them in groups in your border, knowing that after flowering they will look anything but delightful. It took me half an hour back in November to plant loads in trenches and pots. They looked a picture and I’ll have bucket loads to place in vases round the house and to give to friends. In previous years I picked up a couple of bags for next to nothing at the Sarah Raven sale and popped them in a trench bed at school and the gardening club sold them to parents on the Friday afternoon flower stall. I’ll never plant a tulip in a border again. Nearby Dyrham Park have planted tulips in meadows. We visited last year and they looked like a Monet painting.
Most people think that tulips originated in the Netherlands because of the iconic tulip fields over there. Tulip mania really is a thing! In fact they came from Central Asia where they grew as a wildflower. And they were first cultivated in Turkey in around 1000 AD. The tulip name comes from the Turkish word for ‘turban’, a nod to their appearance.
Tulips were brought over to Europe in the 16th century by a biologist called Carolus Clusius. And by the 17th century, their popularity had soared. So much so that it was a crime punishable by exile to either buy or sell tulips outside of the Turkish capital. At the height of tulip mania they were worth more than diamonds.
Apparently, there are over 3000 varieties of tulip, blooming from March to May. They are perennial if you take care of them but some kinds of tulips are better at this than others. Good soil, sunlight, and allowing their leaves to die back on their own after they bloom to store energy for the next year is the key.And then of course there is bound to be the possibility of disease. Fortunately, I’ve haven’t yet had a crop that has been blighted by tulip fire, a fungal disease which distorts, spots and withers the leaves of tulips. Prolonged wet weather in Spring is to blame. Good air circulation is key so don’t plant tulips too densely or near fences. If you are unlucky enough to experience tulip fire, you’ll need to dispose of the plants (but not in your garden compost bin), dig the site over deeply and avoid planting tulips there for at least three years.
Growing your own means that you’ll have something far more beautiful and more unusual to cut for the vase than the stock types to be found in the shops. I’m partial to the purples like Queen of the Night, Merlot and Maytime as well as the orange Ballerinas. Cut the stems at an angle, change the water regularly and keep them out of direct sunlight and drafts and they’ll last ages in the vase from tight buds to fully open flowers.
And if you’d like to branch out and experiment, I’ve heard that tulip petals are edible and can be used to replace onions in many recipes (I’ve never tried) or even to make wine.