Plant: Tulip "Firespray" Source: Breck's, Spring Hill Nursery Quantity: 38 Planted: 10/22/05 Blooms: Early April Notes: Planted in kitchen garden. These bouquet tulips are dependable and fantastic -- extremely bright and colorful, with several flowers per stem.
They're always the earliest tulips to bloom.
Plant: Tulip "Ice Stick" Source: Breck's Quantity: 10 Planted: 10/22/06 Blooms: Early April Notes: Bulbs arrived 9/25/06. Planted in back garden. Lovely tulip with pink-red marking on the outside and a bright yellow center. It opens wide in sunlight.
Plant: Bouquet Tulip "Toronto" Source: Van Bourgondien Quantity: 32 Planted: 10/9/04 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted 20 from Van Bourgondien in back garden. These are very short tulips with peach/pink blooms that open wide in full sun and appear coral. Planted 12 from Van Dyck's in spa garden on 10/29/05. These are nice, reliable bouquet tulips that have beautiful pyramid-shaped blooms when they are closed in the morning, evening, and in the shade.
Plant: Tulip "Purple Prince" Source: Van Bourgondien Quantity: 30 Planted: 10/30/04 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Free with three purchases. Planted in side garden. This is the second time we've planted these bulbs. The first set was from Lowe's, and they performed equally well, but we had to pull them to make room for evergreen trees. The second set took a big hit when we dropped a tree in the middle of them, and only two came back in 2008 despite our best efforts to replant the bulbs. This is a sturdy, long-lasting tulip with beautiful purple-magenta color that returns reliably.
Plant: Tulip "Lady Jane" Source: Brent and Becky's Bulbs Quantity: 50 Planted: 10/29/05 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted in front garden. These are gorgeous, whether the petals are pulled together at day's end or whether spread wide in the sun.
Plant: Tulip "Tarda" Source: Brent and Becky's Bulbs Quantity: 20 Planted: 10/28/07 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted in far back garden.
Plant: Triumph Tulip "Passionale" Source: Lowe's Quantity: 25 Planted: Fall 2003 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted in the front garden. Short, pointed tulip with great purple color. These are sturdy and consistent in height and color.
They keep coming back year after year.
Plant: Tulip "Bleu Aimable" Source: Meijer Quantity: 5 Planted: 10/15/04 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted in front garden. This tulip was displayed as bright blue on the packaging, but is actually a standard purple tulip. It is the same color as Purple Passionale, but with rounded petals instead of pointed petals. Returns reliably every year.
Plant: Tulip "Dawn to Dusk Duet" (Menton and Purple Flag) Source: Van Dyck's Quantity: 20 Planted: 10/9/04 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Free with purchase. Planted in back garden. The Menton tulips bloom a week or two after the Purple Flag tulips. This is one of the reasons I don't care for tulip mixes.
Plant: Bouquet Tulip "Candy Club" Source: Breck's Quantity: 16 Planted: 10/15/04 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted in the back garden. These start out completely white, then pink streaks slowly appear over the next few weeks.
Plant: Double Tulip "Maywonder" Source: Lowe's Quantity: 18 Planted: Fall 2003 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: These are gorgeous, full double tulips which look
more like peonies than tulips. Only half the blooms returned in 2005, but those blooms returned in 2006, 2007, and 2008 too.
Plant: Tulip "Shirley" Source: Van Bourgondien Quantity: 16 Planted: 10/9/04 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted in back garden. These are ivory tulips delicately edged with pink. I think they're a little boring, but they're dependable.
These are dwindling slowly in number every year.
Plant: Tulip "Ballade" Source: Breck's Quantity: 14 Planted: 10/15/04 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted in back garden.
These are graceful mauve-pink blooms with white-trimmed, pointed petals. They are surprisingly tall, and the petals are very long. This is now one of my favorite tulips.
Plant: Tulip "Perestroyka" Source: Van Dyck's Quantity: 10 Planted: 10/29/05 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted in side garden. Free with order. These are large, light red tulips.
Plant: Darwin Tulip "Salmon Impression" Source: Van Dyck's Quantity: 20 Planted: 10/9/05 Blooms: Early April Notes: Planted in kitchen garden. This is a huge, perfect pink tulip. They are tall and beautiful. They're going up there in the top ten of all-time favorite tulips.
Plant: Tulip "Red Impression" Source: Van Dyck's Quantity: 20 Planted: 10/22/06 Blooms: Early April Notes: We were so impressed with the bloom size and quality of Tulip "Salmon Impression" that I thought I'd try another one in the series.
Bulbs arrived 9/27/06. Planted in side garden. Gorgeous, large red tulip.
Plant: Tulip "Cummins" Source: Van Dyck's, Van Bourgondien Quantity: 22 Planted: 10/9/04 Blooms: Late April Notes: Planted in back garden. Tom finds the fringe slightly disturbing ("What purpose does the fringe serve in nature?") but I love the purple color, which is a lighter lavender than this photo shows. These came back strong in 2006 and 2007.
Plant: Tulip "Fantasy" Source: Breck's, Park Seed Quantity: 20 Planted: 10/15/04 Blooms: Late April Notes: Planted 10 from Breck's in kitchen garden. These are tall, unusual tulips, but a bit floppy, possibly due to too much shade. They keep coming back though. Moved these to a sunnier location in the far back garden in fall 2007, along with 10 more from Park Seed.
Plant: Tulip "Little Beauty" Source: Van Bourgondien Quantity: 20 Planted: 10/29/05 Blooms: Late April Notes: Planted in back garden. These are extremely short little tulips.
Plant: Tulip "Princess Irene" Source: Van Dyck's Quantity: 16 Planted: 10/22/06 Blooms: Late April Notes: Part of my ongoing effort to plant everything with the name "Irene."
Bulbs arrived 9/27/06. Planted in far back garden beneath the mimosa tree. I don't care for orange, but I have to respect how unusual these blooms are. These are very short, sturdy tulips. We dug up the tree next to it in fall 2007, so only two bulbs returned in spring 2008.
Plant: Tulip "Peppermint Stick" Source: Breck's Quantity: 12 Planted: 10/22/06 Blooms: Late April Notes: Bulbs arrived 9/25/06. Planted in back garden. These are like a miniature version of "Lady Jane."
Plant: Tulip "Monte Beau" Source: Hirt's Gardens Quantity: 20 Planted: Fall 2007 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: I'm not a big fan of yellow flowers, but this yellow and white striped double tulip is amazing. Like other peony-style tulips, this features 4 - 5 blooms per sturdy stem. Planted 12 from Van Bourgondien in kitchen garden in fall 2004. All 12 bloomed in 2005, three came back in 2006, and only one leaf came back in 2007, so I planted 20 more from Hirt's Gardens in the back garden in fall 2007.
Plant: Tulip "Blueberry Ripple" Source: Bluestone Perennials Quantity: 16 Planted: 10/28/07 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: We planted 12 of these from Van Dyck's in the front garden in Fall 2003 and only two of ten turned out to be Blueberry Ripple. Planted 10 from Van Dyck's in back garden in 2004. In 2005, they were all the correct bulbs. Although the purple and white blend into one another much more than as shown in the catalog, they do look very much like blueberry ripple ice cream and are very pretty tulips. These did not return in 2006. Planted 16 more from Bluestone Perennials in fall 2007 to try again.
Plant: Fringed Tulip "Swan Wings" Source: Park Seed Quantity: 20 Planted: 10/28/07 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted 20 from Brent and Becky's Bulbs next to weeping cherry in fall 2005. This is a lovely white fringed tulip that deserved a better location because it got a little crushed by the weeping cherry's foliage and got very little sun.
Only a few leaves came back in 2007, possibly due to the heavy shade in this location, so I planted 20 more from Park Seed in the kitchen garden in fall 2007 and they look terrific.
Removed or Failed
Plant: Tulip "White Fire" Source: Van Bourgondien Quantity: 12 Planted: 10/29/05 Blooms: Late April Notes: Planted in kitchen garden. These are not as attractive as shown in the catalog. They are supposed to be yellow and white with a red stripe, but there is no clear distinction between yellow and white, and the stripe is quite faint, so they are disappointing. Only two came back in 2007, so they're gone now.
Plant: Triumph Tulip "Barcelona" Source: Lowe's Quantity: 16 Planted: Fall 2003 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted next to the weeping cherry tree. This is a
beautiful, tall, peach/pink tulip. The color clashed horribly with the pink magnolia next to it so we dug up the bulbs and moved them to the back garden in fall 2005. They came up fairly well for being in the shade, but only four bloomed in 2006 and 2007, so I removed them. These were my favorite large pink tulip until "Peach Impression" came along.
Plant: Bouquet Tulip "Antoinette" Source: Van Dyck's Quantity: 18 Planted: 10/9/04 Blooms: Late April Notes: Planted in the kitchen garden. These started out white and yellow, and eventually turned orange-red. Click here, here, and here to see the transformation. About half came back in 2006, and only two came back in 2007 but didn't bloom, so I removed them.
Plant: Tulip "Blue Ribbon" Source: Sundown Garden Quantity: 12 Planted: 10/22/05 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted next to weeping cherry, which left them in the shade most of the time. It's a terrible location for tulips, and they didn't come back in 2007. Short, round purple tulip.
Plant: Tulip Violacea "Pallida" or Tulip "Alba Coerulea Oculata" Source: Van Bourgondien, Brent and Becky's Bulbs Quantity: 16 Planted: 10/9/04 Blooms: Early April Notes: The catalog copy for this tulip said "...petals open to reveal a startling bright blue base." The only thing startling was that the base is actually pale purple. These were over $3/bulb and are unimpressive little blooms. Planted 10 more on 10/22/05 from Brent and Becky's bulbs, where they were slightly cheaper, and they are the only ones that came up in 2006.
None of them came up in 2007. Don't bother with these.
Plant: Double Tulip "Cherry Vanilla" Source: Van Bourgondien Quantity: 10 Planted: 10/9/04 Blooms: Early May Notes: Planted in side garden. Very pretty tulip of uneven size like most double tulips. These did not return in 2006.
Plant: Tulip "Greenland" Source: Van Bourgondien Quantity: 14 Planted: 10/9/04 Blooms: Early May Notes: Planted in back garden among peonies. These are very tall tulips. These did not return in 2006.
Plant: Bouquet Tulip "Cloud Nine" Source: Van Dyck's Quantity: 18 Planted: 10/9/04 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted in front garden. This is a lovely white tulip with pink edges that get wider each day after they bloom. These did not return in 2006.
Plant: Tulip "Queen of Night" Source: Lowe's Quantity: 15 Planted: Fall 2003 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted under weeping cheery tree. These are the color of black cherries. Most of the foliage came back in 2005, but only one bloom appeared. We dug up the few remaining bulbs in fall 2005 to make room for different tulips.
Plant: Double Tulip "Lilac Perfection" Source: Lowe's Quantity: 12 Planted: Fall 2003 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: These are beautiful, full, peony-like tulips. They are a light lilac pink. After blooming nicely in 2004, they completely disappeared in 2005.
Plant: Fringed Triumph Tulip "Pink Fountain" Source: Lowe's Quantity: 10 Planted: Fall 2003 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted in front garden. These were a lovely pink tulip, but there were no signs of fringe anywhere, and they looked like any standard tulip. The flowers weren't very consistent in size or color. My dilemma of whether or not to pull them was rendered moot when they did not come up at all in 2005.
Plant: Tulip "Dreamland" Source: Menard's Quantity: 8 Planted: Fall 2003 Blooms: Late April Notes: Planted in back near lilac bush. There were only two bulbs left when we pulled these to make room for new shrubs in spring 2005.
If I find these again, I'll plant them again, because they were lovely.
Plant: Tulips "Purissima" Source: Menards Quantity: 16 Planted: Fall 2001 Blooms: Early April Notes: Relocated in 2003 to front corner of front garden.
Only a few remained and we removed them after their 2004 blooms
to make room for new columbine plants.
Plant: Tulip "Sweetheart Duet" Source: Van Dyck's Quantity: 15 Planted: Fall 2003 Blooms: Mid-April Notes: Planted in kitchen garden. I don't like to mix tulip
colors, but this mix came free with mail order. The red flowers
bloomed first, and are 6 - 8 inches shorter than the pink flowers,
so I can't imagine why these were paired as a mix. These were also
planted in shade and are very droopy, but made a nice cut flower
bouquet. I decided that I'd rather free up the space for the astilbes
planted around them, so I removed them.
