Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Tulips

I love tulips - standards, fancies, double fancies, what have you. They are one of the most beautiful harbingers of spring. People call me all the time and cry, "Oh no my tulips are blooming and its snowing." Not to worry. Even though they originated in what today is Turkey, they were adapted to the cold of Holland in the sixteenth century. Tulips love the snow and cold. Their bulbs require the cold, in point of fact.
A note to neat freaks like me - do not cut the tulip back until her foliage turns brown. After the flowers bloom the bulb stores energy for the winter months from the sun throughout the rest of the spring and into early summer.