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…
Well after successfully enduring their artificial winter in my fridge for the past few weeks, all the tulip bulbs are now in the ground (or rather, in the pot). I’ve split my divine mix of 45 bulbs through three separate 30cm plant pots. Now they are being kept hidden from the sun while I wait for them to sprout upwards through the surface layer of earth to display their greeny goodness.
In addition to my previous bulb purchase, I forgot to mention the arrival of my most lust-worthy purchase of black tulips a few weeks back… but they’ve also been ‘chilling’ in the fridge (I’m thinking they’re going to look smashing surrounded by a contrasting mix of white, violet and red blooms).
Ten of these lovely ‘queen of the night’ black tulip bulbs (which I purchasead from Van Diemen Quality Bulbs) are now resting patiently beneath the earth ready to awaken in the not-too-distant future and amaze me with their beautiful blooms (well, fingers crossed anyway).
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.