Truthful over Tulips.

why less is now more for me with this bulb of temptation

I’ve got 5 pots of tulips this year. That is the truth, one large one who’s bulbs all came from an impulsive midnight Farmer Gracy end of season sale. These are deliberately garish of orange and apricot and flashed by white and red varieties too just coming out, quite bonkers but refreshing and I don’t hate it.

Then I have my beloved favourites who are all huge and gorgeous pre-ordered immediately from the esteemed varieties available from Sarah Raven. They are Black Parrot and Queensday mingling like exotic birds, indeed reminding me of my favourite coton manor caribbean flamingos, strong and ruffled. They are overlooked and accompanied by a neighbouring pot of rose mutablis who’s foliage especially looks wondrously romantic brushing over them. Then lastly I have Orange Marmalade who is in the ground and in two pots with geums under planting her huge flowers stroked with green. I love them all but there aren’t hundreds to adore, if I was to pick them all, there might be 50 and I’m happy with that number. How times have changed from when I started adoring flowers and planted hundreds into a single dolly tub, layer over layer, greedy and lustful over the thoughts of them.

I am sort of over tulip porn these days. Maybe you need several years of spending stupid money on them and having the endlessly bubbling everlasting (almost) like porridge pots of them to eventually tier of the endless spending, the considering of which ones to plant and then the worry. The worry of fungal disease, of rats, squirrels, mice and pheasants whom all predate those big fat, Ferrero Rocher freshly bought quite sexual bollock like if I’m being honest, bulbs.

Do they need protecting, oh lets chicken wire them up in the pots then, oh gosh the whole garden now looks like a crabby allotment but never fear because now we are told the common sense thing to do is to cover your pots with holly and rose clippings, it only works if you push the sprigs in! Then, oh my tulips are short this year, well did you water them… no, well they are very thirsty but if its a wet and violent spring they may be in tatters anyway.

Then dear readers we buy books don’t we, yes and I’m bloody glad that you do because I’ve done a few tulip porno publishing’s in my time, oh yes and I’m proud of them, well mostly. Garden photo only fans glorified tulip porno filled books akimbo, endless but never mentioned expense on every page, don’t ask if the writer employs a gardener whatever you do, shhhh that spoils the magic!

The pots, the cloches, the glasshouses then the tulips blossoming like a Georgian ostrich feather plumed, great wig party on the terrace. Endless beautiful, sensual jellies and trifles upon stems but who’s going to sort all that out once its all dead? Have no fear! Turn the page, magic we are into the next season, amen to the fantasy of those gardening books, I’m looking forward to putting together my next porno!

It is all legal crack basically for the garden consumerholic and I can say this because I’ve been there, I still do it but much less now, its that buzz of bulb buying that feeds our modern human, the hoarding of bulbs, the considered comparison of varieties, the thrill of googling them, finding a supplier, finding they are on sale. BUT I’m quite done with this addiction to tulips and you know why I’m glad because it makes me admire them much more

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I would rather have one pot of my favourites, a cherished dozen than a garden filled with hundreds of them for a flash in the pan, willy wonkers chocolate factory Instagram moment and it is a moment, then they are all gone and rarely does the show return without the bulbs being bought all over again each autumn.

And the garden long term benefits from this resistance of tulip bulb buying. Thoughts turn to more worthy investments, roses who will out live you, good bags of mulch, bulbs who do come back for years the hyacinths and narcissi, violas who can be picked and deadheaded endlessly that will flower before and after the tulips, your thoughts are widened and so then is your gardens diversity. And the fewer tulips you do have almost blend into the garden better as singletons, trios and dots through other plants they don’t look like they are all huddled trying to queue up to go on the latest roller coaster at Alton Towers, instead they are mingling with other garden residents and it all feels more harmonious.