This was taken last year. They are Princess Irene tulips and are my favorite of all the varieties that I have. I buy them whenever I find them. They are just starting to bloom right now, and I can't wait to see them again.
No, this photo isn't color-enhanced; they really are this pretty.
pretty! ahh...one day I will have a yard, so I could look out and think "one day, I'm going to do something with this yard."
that will be sweet.
May 05, 2005 10:37 PM
Tulips are my favorite flower. These are gorgeous.
I know I'm really dense, but I just read that you and Sideshow Bob are married. Wow. That just blew my mind.
May 06, 2005 12:12 AM
Gorgeous tulips!
We recently bought our first house and I am already planning where I would like to plant my favourite flower come fall.
May 06, 2005 12:14 AM
Those are beautiful coloured tulips
June
May 06, 2005 9:03 AM
I may ruin my 'guy' status here, but those really are pretty tulips.
Now to redeem myself...I'm going to eat a Six Dollar Burger today while I watch the entire "Die Hard" trilogy.
May 06, 2005 10:30 AM
Gorgeous flowers!
We used to have amazing holyhocks, but this year no such luck.
May 06, 2005 10:58 AM
Tayster...you have internet access while waiting in line for the new Star Wars movie? Impressive! (I tease because I love)
May 06, 2005 11:18 AM
Hollyhocks are tricky. They, like delphiniums tend to last a few years then die off, especially if they are prolific bloomers. However, they both usually leave enough offspring to take over. I haven't tried extra fertilization to see if I can keep them alive longer. Usually if there are too many steps in taking care of a plant I will forget to do it, so I just don't have them in my garden.
May 06, 2005 11:52 AM
sideshow, we have to have internet access. Can you imagine a bunch of geeks without our computers? There would be a riot right in front of the theater.
May 06, 2005 12:04 PM
Awesome display of tulips. We planted about 100 bulbs in the fall, but when they started coming up a month or so ago, the deer would promptly eat the heads off. Then they started munching on the leaves. All we could do was watch in horror and wish we hadn't spent 2 weekends planting them.
May 06, 2005 1:06 PM
Those deer are horrible garden munchers. I have heard that there are some bulbs like tulips and hyancinths that they won't touch, but pretty much all the tulips are fair game.
I don't have deer, but I do have rabbits. They like to eat the flowers too. When I brush my dog and cat I keep the hair and push it into the ground around the flowers that the rabbits eat. This has worked great going on four years now. Maybe it would work for deer too. There are deer deterant sprays that you can buy too.
Your bulbs should come up next year, but they might not flower since they didn't have leaves to store energy. I would suggest using an organic fertilizer like bone meal this year to help them out.
May 06, 2005 1:21 PM
I'm hoping they'll come back. I'll look into the fertilizer too. Tulips are closer to being annuals in this part of the world because the ground apparently doesn't get cold enough to "reset" the bulbs in the winter.
May 06, 2005 2:40 PM
You must not have deeor OR squirrels. The squirrels decapitated most of my tulips this year. Yours are gorgeous. Thanks for sharing.
Scott, dig up your tulips every year and store them in the fridge for a couple of weeks. That will fool them into blooming again.
May 06, 2005 2:44 PM
Oh, yeah. I forgot you are in Atlanta, Scott. Yeah, you will have to refrigerate them. That would be too much work for me. If you don't have enough room in your fridge you can get a mini fridge. I think they need about 2-3 months of cooling. You can look up "forcing bulbs" on Google.
May 06, 2005 3:05 PM
I forgot- if you will need to dig up something every year, you can put them in planting baskets, that way you just loosen the soil and put the basket out of the ground. I usually use the gallon+ plastic containers plants come in from the nursery, putting one in the ground to leave there and then slipping another right inside with my plants planted in it. That way all I have to do is pull the pot out of the other one when I need to store the plant for the winter. Works real slick. But bulbs are prone to rot so you'll have to make sure that you take out the excess bulbs often as they multiply.
May 06, 2005 3:15 PM
Love those tulips and every fall I plan on putting some in but then we get an early frost or snow and I don't do it. I have no squirrels or deer to worry about, however I don't know if the black bears eat them or not.
May 06, 2005 10:26 PM
It is my understanding that as long as the ground itself isn't frozen, you can still plant them (except that I have heard that daffodils like a little more time to grow before the ground freezes). I have planted bulbs as late as mid-Nov here (in WISCONSIN!) and they still came up just fine.
May 06, 2005 10:34 PM
They are Gorgeous!!
I've said goodbye to my tulips for the year.(*Sniff* *Cry*) I'm going to stuff the garden full of bulbs this Fall because they have become my whole family's favorites too.
Next thing we plant are Nasturtiums. they are pretty, easy to grow, and taste great in salads.
May 07, 2005 3:03 AM
Lyvvie- I didn't know you could eat them. I had always seen them recommended as a vegetable garden flower to add color and I think that they were supposed to deter pests of some kind. Hmm..eat them. I'll try that.
May 07, 2005 11:57 AM