I wrote about the three plants I would take to a desert isle yesterday. The third was tulips. I must admit that one of my criteria for flowers is how photogenic they are, and tulips are perhaps the most photogenic of all flowers. They come in many shapes and colors and forms and are all beautiful. Parrot tulips, like the pink parrots in this photograph are wild with color and frilly form. But the simple singles like the reds in "Tulips in Snow", the second photograph, are also striking flashes of color.
Tulips are not hard: you just put them in the ground in the fall and the next spring you have beautiful blooms UNLESS they are eaten first. Unfortunately they are choice food morsels for the little animals that live below our gardens. My friend Mary and I once stood in my garden amazed watching a tulip being sucked down into the ground for someone's lunch. There are a number of ways of dealing with these critters. I plant my tulips in the big rubber pots that you buy shrubs in at nurseries, sunk into the ground. I leave the tubs in the ground and replant them each fall. During the summer I fill them with annuals. Other possibilities are soaking them in Ropel before planting or putting each in a little plastic mesh bag (like you buy sacks of oranges in). I used to do the latter with lilies before the red lily beetles came to New Hampshire.
I replant my tulips each fall because they don't come back well the next year, the bulbs split and the blooms are smaller and weeker each subsequent year). Expensive annuals but who can resist?
Find of the Day:
Tulips are not hard: you just put them in the ground in the fall and the next spring you have beautiful blooms UNLESS they are eaten first. Unfortunately they are choice food morsels for the little animals that live below our gardens. My friend Mary and I once stood in my garden amazed watching a tulip being sucked down into the ground for someone's lunch. There are a number of ways of dealing with these critters. I plant my tulips in the big rubber pots that you buy shrubs in at nurseries, sunk into the ground. I leave the tubs in the ground and replant them each fall. During the summer I fill them with annuals. Other possibilities are soaking them in Ropel before planting or putting each in a little plastic mesh bag (like you buy sacks of oranges in). I used to do the latter with lilies before the red lily beetles came to New Hampshire.
I replant my tulips each fall because they don't come back well the next year, the bulbs split and the blooms are smaller and weeker each subsequent year). Expensive annuals but who can resist?
Find of the Day:Aren't these origami tulips astonishing. I have tried origami but always given up in frustration.
Think of the talent and work to make this lovely everlasting bouquet.
These are made by an artist in Cork, Ireland and are available for purchase on her Etsy shop ArguingTheMobius.
Only $20 for 15 blooms on bamboo stems.
2 comments:
hello from ireland! thank you for your compliments on my origami work, so wonderful to hear. your photographs are impressive too!
Adrian, I will visit your site.
Liason, it is a pleasure to show your beautiful work..
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