Tulips

We’ve all seen it–one quick frost and all of your beautiful flowers and plants turn to green mush. Of course, the obvious answer is to bring them inside, but where do you put them? How much light do they need? How much water do they need? These things will all change when you move your plants to a different environment, and the shock of the change may be as damaging as the cold.

Here are a few ideas to help tender plants and gardeners survive the cold together:

1. First, make sure your plants are in loose, sandy soil or a potting mix, and your pot has holes in the bottom. If the moisture can’t drain off  your plant the roots will surely rot.
2. Next, Find a nice sunny spot in your home, preferably a south-facing window. Artificial light will work, but use florescent bulbs. The heat from incandescent bulbs will dry your plant out very quickly.
3. Make sure the temperature stays above 55 degrees Fahrenheit, anything lower than that and you might as well have left them to the elements. Also, don’t sit your container plants too close to cold windows.
4. Avoid drafty places near vents or frequently opened doors–your plants will dry out quickly. For most tender plants, the soil should be moist but not wet. Check your soil’s moisture daily.
5. If you have potted tuberous plants that grow from bulbs or rhizomes like caladiums, tulips or dahlias, you can store those pots inside in a dark cool place, like a closet or cabinet.

Happy Gardening!

Native to Turkey, tulips were in cultivation long before they traveled West with Ambassador Busbecq in the mid-1550’s, and many colors and forms must have been present before German artist Konrad Gesner published his famous illustration in 1559 of a long-stemmed, red-flowered tulip. But this painting was the first glimpse Europeans had ever seen of a tulip, and the reaction was electric.

The painting was made from a tulip variety growing in the Imperial Garden of Vienna. Carolus Clusius was the head of that Garden, a good friend of Busbecq, and a passionate gardener. When he accepted an appointment at Leiden University in Holland, he brought tulips with him.

It is believed that the first tulips flowered in Holland in 1594, in the garden Clusius had planted the year before. An avid tulip breeder, Clusius cultivated an enormous tulip garden and offered his new varieties for sale at outrageous prices. Many local gardeners responded by slipping into Clusius’s gardens and digging up their favorites. By the early 1600s, tulip growing was changing from a gardening passion into a business.

Tulip Mania began in earnest in 1634, fueled by a virus that caused tulip petals to become wildly streaked with bold colors. (Today’s Rembrandt Mix is the closest contemporary tulip to these Dutch classics.) No two flowers looked exactly alike, and everyone wanted them. Florists even developed a special ceramic vase called a tulipiere to hold each stem separately, so that the blooms could be enjoyed individually rather than massed together.

Fortunes were made and lost overnight in tulip speculation. Single bulbs were auctioned for outrageous prices, and ships that sank or cargo that rotted ruined potential investors. Finally the entire enterprise crashed in 1637. Interestingly, this exact phenomenon was repeated in the Turkish market in the early 1700s.

Tulips remain one of the most popular bulbs in the world, with new varieties developed every year.  Treat your garden to the plant that rocked Europe and created a sensation in the economic fortunes of thousands! Until Monday, September 10th, all of these gorgeous flowers are up to 40% off. Choose your favorites, and enjoy your own Tulip Mania!

It's September – temperatures are dropping. The fall planting season is upon us, and Wayside Gardens has plenty of fresh flower bulbs stacked and ready to go. You can smell them walking through the coolers, a crisp, earthy smell. By the middle of this month, we will be shipping to most zones, and these living packages of beautiful botanical potential will be nestled into your garden, waiting for spring.

Flower bulbs really are great – a fun and simple project for novice gardeners, and a wide brush full of bright paint for those veteran garden artists looking to dump huge amounts of quick color into their landscape design.

There are a couple of dazzling new and unique flowers in our bulb line-up this year. Please check out the tulips 'Black Jewel' and 'Doll's Minuet' – I promise, they are like no tulips you've seen before. Another featured favorite this year is Colchicum 'Water Lily' – these large sprawling bloom actually look like floating waterlilies. Make sure to check out the rest of our fall flower bulbs.

Tulips are generally impressive, the varieties available from Wayside Gardens this fall are no exception. These new tulips offer an exciting new perspective on an old garden classic. Breeders have definitely taken a few liberties with the traditional tulip blooms and foliage, often looking more like some impressionist rendering of a tulip than a simple flower.

Tulipa 'Doll's Minuet' is a perfect example of these dynamic tulip varieties. The deep rosy petals twist and dance out of the bud like a slowly growing fire. This is one flower that will have your garden guests doing double-takes.

Another beautiful new tulip, Tulipa 'Black Jewel', has deep maroon, frilled petals with tiny sparkles of gold flecks on their tips. It is a very classy and intriguing flower with long sturdy stems perfect for cut-flower arrangements.

Bulbs will ship in the fall for fall planting. Remember, fall is the best time of the year for planting!

Yar, me hearties.  ‘Tis Talk Like A Pirate Day yet again.  I’m Cap’n Labuffarosa, and I’ve got me trusty parrot tulips on me shoulder (just not, you know, really.  That would be silly, and they’re not even in season), and I’m ready to give ye a fine tour of me Pirate Garden.

Of course, nothing goes with me Caribbean rum quite like some Coconut and Lime.  Except for maybe Oranges and Lemons, to keep away the scurvy.  Any citrus will do, so long as it keeps me healthy enough to be out hunting Winter Jewels, Blue Diamonds, and February Gold.  If we’re lucky, we’ll come across a boatload of Golden Ducats.  Maybe on my trip to Nice we’ll run across an Elegant Lady, or an Exotic Emperor and his Ivory Queen and Orange Princess (hey, cut me some slack, this is a pretty thin premise I’m working with here).  Just have care not to catch me in a Dangerous Mood, or ye’ll catch the Golden Edge of me cutlass.  If ye find me resting in a peaceful Blue Lagoon at Twilight, I might just Regale ye with tales of me time on the Silk Road, or of kidnapping the beautiful Stella de Oro under the Snowcaps of the Spanish Peaks.

The Pirate’s life, an Endless Summer for me.

(was this one too Over the Top?  It’s only 27, and I was shooting for 30.)

After years of badly wanting to go, I finally got a chance to attend the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C.  We left on a last-minute (and poorly-planned) whim Friday evening and returned Sunday night.  We were extremely fortunate to have had a free weekend just when the blooms were at their peak, and it was absolutely amazing.  It’s kind of hard to imagine without being there, but for a few days out of the year, a huge portion of our Nation’s capital turns pale pink.  Hundreds of thousands of people come to the festival each year (more than a million by some estimates).

The Japanese Cherry Trees (Sakura trees) in Washington were a gift in 1912 from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to celebrate the friendship between Japan and the United States.  The initial gift was of around 3000 trees and was reciprocated a few years later with a gift of flowering dogwood trees.  The festival was first held in 1935, but it was suspended just a few years later during World War II.  It was restarted in 1947, once America’s relationship with Japan had improved.  More trees were given to the US in 1965.  The US was able to return the favor in 1981, when a flood destroyed many of Japan’s Yoshino Cherry Trees.  Cuttings were taken from the cherry trees in Washington and taken back to be planted in Japan.  These Cherry Trees are an important symbol of femininity, beauty, and the fleeting nature of life in Japanese culture.  They are not, however, fruit trees, as are the Cherry trees that most Americans think of.

The festival is absolutely amazing.  Not only were the cherry trees in full bloom, but so were the daffodils, some of the tulips, magnolia trees, and apple trees.  While it rained all weekend here at our home in Hodges, South Carolina, it was a beautiful weekend in Washington.  It was a little overcast, but the bluer light just highlighted the sea of white and pink blossoms surrounding the entire tidal basin.  I’ve never seen so many kites as there were flying above the Mall.  While we didn’t have much time to visit the museums, spending a beautiful day walking around Washington in the peak of the Cherry Blossoms just can’t be beat.  I’m putting a few of the pictures I took up here on the blog.  Be kind, though; I’m a writer, not a photographer!