Tulips 2011

Nice Todd! Tulips are just starting to bloom at the Royal Botanical Gardens in ON...but we're a little south of you. At the NJ garden I had a few last week with more on the way.

There have been some very good Tulipa species I've wanted to show here, but time got the better of me. Todd, I like T. turkestanica, one that I do not grow yet, but I do grow the similar T. bifloriformis which has dark brown anthers, always the first species to bloom here.  

Some bright hybrids in bloom recently, looking happy on a warm sunny spring day, the rock-garden sized and long lived 'Little Princess' (orange), the rose-red blue-centered 'Little Beauty', and perhaps my favorite Tulipa of all, T. clusiana 'Lady Jane', considerably taller, with exceptionally narrow silver leaves and willowy stems and outsized lily-flowered blooms, swaying back and forth in the slightest breeze, the epitome of elegance.

One that I'm not so fond of, is T. ferganica, the flowers are nice but the foliage is too course and husky for my taste.  In the lower center is a single bulb left of T. montana (yellow form) with undulate leaf margins, wish I had more of this one left.

Side note: many of these tulips are fragrant at close hand.

Nice tulips, Mark! I have that 'Little Beauty' too - isn't it a humilis cultivar?

It is a stable and slowly increasing bulb here but I grow it together with other plants.

I have one that works well in my dry garden. I like the gray leaves and pale yellow flowers. Here is Tulipa batalinii

Well, I missed T. turkestanica (having to work late last week) but T. tarda cheers me up considerably!
 

T. kaufmaniana cultivars are starting too:

Hoy wrote:

Nice tulips, Mark! I have that 'Little Beauty' too - isn't it a humilis cultivar?

It is a stable and slowly increasing bulb here but I grow it together with other plants.

Trond,

here it's often sold as a hageri cultivar but I would think it's a humilis cultivar too. Anyhow, a very nice little tulip.