{"id":15190,"date":"2022-10-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-03T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=15190"},"modified":"2022-10-04T16:45:44","modified_gmt":"2022-10-04T14:45:44","slug":"tulip-mania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/gardensillustrated\/2022\/10\/04\/tulip-mania\/","title":{"rendered":"Tulip mania"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As we enter the peak month for panic buying spring bulbs, Alice wonders if it might be time to rein in our unsustainable pursuit of the perfect Instagrammable border <\/p>\n\n

by <\/em>Alice <\/em>Vincent <\/em><\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n

I\u2019m not saying we\u2019ve taken to ruffs and haggling by lamplight, but I do wonder if we\u2019re in the midst of a 21st-century tulip mania. Nearly 400 years ago the lust for tulips in the Netherlands was such that certain bulbs sold for multiples of people\u2019s salaries on contract alone. When the market crashed three years after it bubbled up, many investors walked away empty handed, their fortunes in tatters. <\/p>\n\n

These days, diving into the website of Peter Nyssen for my annual bulb binge hardly holds such peril, but tulips still induce frenzy. It starts in midsummer, with the organised snaffling up the most covetable cultivars while everyone else is on holiday. <\/p>\n\n

Once they arrive, the bulbs sit in a cardboard box by the back door for several weeks until one finally musters up the energy to plant them \u2013 for tulips it\u2019s worth waiting until November, when it\u2019s cooler, which lowers the risk of tulip fire, the fungal disease that you\u2019ll only know about once they start growing. And then we wait, for months, for the display we\u2019ve probably been planning for nearly a year. <\/p>\n\n

That makes it sound straightforward, and tulips can be deliriously easy to grow. I remember some jolly parrot-style ones (frilly edges on the petals) appearing on my first balcony and being amazed that such splendour appeared from what looked like a bad onion. I included them in my first book, <\/span>How <\/em>to <\/em>Grow <\/em>Stuff, <\/em>because they seemed so effortless. But that balcony was free of pests \u2013 no foxes, no squirrels, no mice \u2013 and the tulips could grow in peace. Within a few years I\u2019d be watching a squirrel uproot bulbs from pots on my new woodland balcony, and Robin Hoodlike, bury them in my neighbour\u2019s troughs, and realising my naivety.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

I spent most of the first winter burying bulbs, and then shouting at squirrels who dug them up. A heavy mulch helped for a week or so. Cayenne pepper or chilli flakes deterred for a while, but had to be replaced every time it rained. The next year, I mixed narcissus bulbs in with the tulips, which seemed to work best, but April\u2019s bulb explosion (gorgeous) was a high price to pay for lacklustre summer perennials in the same spot. <\/p>\n\n

What\u2019s less discussed, though, is the innate indulgence of tulips. They\u2019re technically perennial, but the biggest, blousiest blooms come from annual replacing. Some, such as the delicate, curly petalled T. <\/em>sylvestris, <\/em>will naturalise and return for decades, and when I\u2019ve been bothered to lift bulbs, and stored them in a large tub of old compost by the shed, they have come back with surprising vigour in new spots \u2013 under trees works better than you might expect. <\/p>\n\n

Still, many replace or restock their tulips every year. Plant purchasing and sustainability is something I\u2019m increasingly trying to reckon with: at a time when we ought to be consuming less from a planet ever-more drained of resources, ordering, buying, planting and then uprooting bulbs feels particularly indulgent. It\u2019s tempting to skew towards those flowers that last better in the ground, such as narcissus. <\/p>\n\n

I hold Instagram responsible; all those gorgeous photos of tulips flopping elegantly from vases. From the panic over ordering them to the obsession with lifting and replacing every year. It\u2019s responsible, too, for the boom-and-bust cycles of certain cultivars: \u2018La Belle \u00c9poque\u2019 is to tulips what \u2018Caf\u00e9 au Lait\u2019 is to dahlias \u2013 popular, and quite boring; I\u2019ve never been able to look at it the same way since my husband called it \u201cbelly pork\u201d. <\/p>\n\n

This year, I\u2019ve abstained \u2013 landscaping does not a happy tulip bed make \u2013 and will be curious to see what returns from the dolly tubs I generously planted last year: the delicate, pink-and-yellow T. saxatilis, <\/em>especially. Small and unshowy in Love Hearts pastels, they\u2019re about as opposite from the fashionable Dutch Master blouse aesthetic as you could get. <\/p>\n\n

ILLUSTRATION BY ALICE PATTULLO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we enter the peak month for panic buying spring bulbs, Alice wonders if it might be time to rein in our unsustainable pursuit of the perfect Instagrammable border 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