Emily Post, in her classic book Etiquette, maintained that there was a clear distinction between ostentation, which she deplored, and extravagance. As she put it, “Nearly everything that is beautiful or valuable is an extravagance.” I tend to be a fairly frugal gardener in most respects, growing things from seed when I can, relying on friends and family members for perennial divisions, going to the county’s free mulch pile, that sort of thing. I do have one real garden extravagance however. Each fall I plant at least 150 tulips, I enjoy them in the spring, and then I pull them out and throw them away after a single blooming.
When I put it so baldly it does sound wasteful, but I’ve put a lot of thought into it and decided that for me the extravagance is well worth it. Let me explain. I love tulips excessively, but they make terrible plants for a perennial flower border. Many of the brightest and loveliest show a steep decline in flowering after the first year or two. Blossoms will grow smaller and less showy until finally disappearing after several years of being left in the same position. Yet if you have tulips planted among other perennials, it’s very hard to dig out the fading bulbs without doing damage to plants that are just picking up steam for their main period of growth as the tulips finish.
Plus, I love tulips in bold plantings where dozens are massed together. When seen in small numbers planted in dribs and drabs in a mixed border I think tulips are very simple flowers with boring foliage, but when planted in large groups they’re arresting showstoppers. With their immense variety of colors and petal forms, they lend themselves to high contrast and daring color combinations. I once saw a garden with several dozens of tulips where only two varieties had been planted, one a creamy pale yellow and the other the deep burgundy almost black variety “Queen of Night”. It was stunning.
Since I plant so many bulbs, my economizing move is to either buy inexpensive mixes of tulips or to wait until late in the planting season when garden centers mark their bulbs way down. White Flower Farms has some beautiful and reasonably priced tulip mixes available in either mixed brights or mixed pastel shades. In addition to price, the advantage of planting a mix is that bloom time is extended since some bulbs will be early varieties and others late.
Planting 150 tulips each fall is work, as my long-suffering helpful husband will attest. But since I don’t intend to keep the tulips after they stop blooming, I plant them in the plot that will later become my summer vegetable garden. Punching 150 holes in the soft, well-worked soil of a kitchen garden is quick and easy compared to the labor of digging in untouched ground or of trying to carefully cram and stuff bulbs in between established perennials. A sturdy bulb planter is the essential tool. After a few years of kneeling with a handheld bulb planter, I realized the wisdom of a long-handled step-on type. With my husband’s help, we usually punch out 25 holes at a time and mix the soil removed with Bulb-Tone or bone meal fertilizer. Then carefully drop a bulb into each hole, cover with the improved soil, pat down gently and rake leaves over the top. Then we wait as patiently as possible for the show to begin in spring.
