First came the lovely green buds.
Second came the beautiful white tulips.
Here now finally is my proudest achievement as a gardener to date…the stunning purple blooms have arrived!
As glorious as they appear to be here, I have to admit they are even lovelier in person…
While I do my best to never take credit for the work of others, I would like to think I had a ‘little’ something to do with the first of my tulip bulbs awakening from deep slumber and revealing itself in floral glory…
Isn’t she beautiful? (you can probably hear me clapping proudly in the background).
I hope she is the first of many, many more…
I’ve often been drawn to growing bulbs. Whether this is due to the two beautiful Gladoli blooms which would appear, as if by magic each year at my parent’s home, without receiving any love or encouragement… or simply out of the need to bear witness to the metamorphosis of something brown and dry, into something beautiful and refined. It’s really quite incredible.
The fact that I have often thought about growing tulips in particular, may of course be influenced by many other factors. Perhaps it is due to some random association I’ve made through art courtesy of Monet, or perhaps it is due to my strange obsession with Vermeer, and then by association an obsession with all things Dutch…which leads me back to tulips …
I think it’s safe to say that I’m not entirely clear on the reasoning behind the desire for bulbs myself, and I have to say that it doesn’t really matter. The most important thing to me right now is that I finally committed to purchasing some lovely, lovely tulip bulbs (courtesy of the wonderful folk at Tesselaar). Even better than that, my perfect collection of bulbs have arrived!!
Given that these pretties will be grown in pots within the delights of sub-tropical Brisbane temperatures, the bulbs are currently enjoying their ‘artificial winter’ in the fridge. Very soon they’ll be making the transition from the inside to the outside, and I honestly can’t wait to see how they go.
