Tarda this year.

Reliable and fast spreading, I love tarda and my spring garden album would not be complete without photos of them. I brought them from my city garden and put a patch of them in the lower boardwalk garden here. Since then, they have spread throughout that level in the boardwalk garden. I have spread them to the top level of the boardwalk garden and last year, out into the sun gardens. There are patches everywhere that need to be divided again and so this year they move to the front yard as well.

'Tarda'

Of all the mini-botanical tulips I have grown over the years, none hold a candle to 'tarda'. They are very reliable, multiply extremely quickly and always add a spot of sunshine to my spring garden.

When I lived in the city, 'tarda' were always the first blooms in my garden every spring. Always.

Here, there are a lot of things that show up before 'tarda'. I think part of it is that the 'tarda' are under trees and not in the sun gardens while the 'chopin', forsythia and early red triumph tulips are in the sunshine all day from very early on in the season.

This year, I was excited to see that the 'thalia' daffodil were blooming at the same time as the 'tarda'. I am going to move a patch of the 'tarda' (they make very nice patches) out to the sun garden beside the 'thalia'. Of course, being in the sun might make 'tarda' bloom earlier but I am going to cross my fingers and go for it.

Why I will never be a Master Gardener

The first blooms of the season for me were these 'Chopin' Kaufmania botanical tulips. At least that is what is says on my receipt. When I look up 'Chopin' tulips, which I did just the other day, I find a lot of information about 'Chopin' gregii tulips. I also found Kaufmania spelled more than 6 different ways. I am not sure of the difference between gregii and Kaufmania and it turns out, I don't care!

Apparently, Kaufmania means they are a waterlily tulip, referring to the flower shape. Botanical means they are small. While the flowers are not huge, they are smaller than a typical tulip but are larger than any of my other botanicals. And they are definitely short and early.

 

I went looking for information out of interest. I found a lot of information. But here is the crux... I found the more complicated the answer became, the less interested I was in finding it out!

 

I am a gardener. All I need to know is colour, height and requirements to fit it into my garden plan. Anything more is extra information my brain is unwilling to hold. Bottom line, I absolutely love my 'Chopin' no matter what they technically are.

 

 

 

Peek-a-boo

The season has finally started for me and it started fast! I was still breaking up snow banks and spreading them into the sun today at the back deck. Just feet away in the lower boardwalk garden, the tarda are already poking through the leaf cover. Tarda are the most reliable mini-botanical tulips I have ever grown and they are always the first thing to poke through, usually the first thing to bloom. Some years, the crocus beat them to the punch. I haven't seen any crocus yet this year which might be a bad sign. Much to my delight, the Zurel are still a huge patch, despite dividing them three years in a row. And then there are all the unknown (until they bloom) tulips that seem to be everywhere! I spent the whole day out cleaning up the yard and came upon several interesting developments in my garden. The most perplexing of them was the pile of tulips bulbs I found sitting on top of the ground at the end of the boardwalk. Not quite under the dogwood but close enough to get lost if the dogwood were in leaf. Not sure how they got there. My best guess would be that a dog (yes, it would likely be that dog) dug them up or a squirrel moved them. I know that I did not just toss a handful of tulips bulbs on the ground as I walked by! I could tell that two of them were tarda so I planted them together in a spot where I thought a little patch of tarda would look good. It will only take them a year or two at most to become that little patch. The rest of them got planted in the cement pothead at the drive corner. Since they all had root and a shoot, I expect they will grow there just fine this year and once I know what they are, I can pop them in the garden somewhere. If I can resist the temptation to plant them for that long. If I can't resist, they will get plopped in a clump all together and I will cross my fingers that they are not clashing varieties.

Mini Botanical Tulips

Puchella Easter Star

Of all the early spring bulbs, mini botanical tulips are my favorite. In zone 3, spring bulbs have a difficult time of it. They tend to try and come up when the snow is still everywhere and often do not bloom until they are well established. My puchella was planted in 2010 and this is the first bloom I have seen. It is a single bloom but gives me hope for the future.

Tarda Patch

My tarda, on the other hand are very well established and seem to be the one variety that I can count on to bloom every year, no matter what. They form huge patches very quickly here for me. As an example, I divided the boardwalk garden patches last year and they still doubled in size in that single year. I was commenting yesterday that I might need to divide them again! Not only reliable, they are real stunners. With a pale purple translucent bud that opens to a bright yellow flower with white tips. They look great with turkestanica, which has the opposite colouring. One caution though... turkestanica is much taller than tarda in my garden so it is best to plant them in patches beside each other rather than all mixed together. Puchella and tarda are the same height and could be planted together to form bright patches of multi-colours. I don't plan on trying that until the puchella are much more abundant here so maybe check back in 2050!!

Turkestanica