Double Tulips: Why Your Garden Needs These Breathtaking Flowers

Monte Carlo tulips in bloom

Have you at any time read of double tulips? No? Neither had I right up until incredibly recently. But I am tremendous joyful to have learned this breath-taking variety of tulip. Recently, I have commenced to think about finding some flowers for my backyard garden. I’d really like to add some color and exhilaration to what is at this time a really very low-routine maintenance and functional place.

Back again in lockdown two, or was it lockdown a few? Can everyone even remember how lots of lockdowns there had been? It all feels like a surreal aspiration now, does not it? Anyway, all through 1 of the lockdowns, my husband created a pair of huge planters in our garden at the conclude of the deck. The strategy was to plant them total of possibly greens or bouquets.

My husband needs to expand vegetables, but I just know we really do not have the time or persistence for that (we tried using throughout the lockdowns and it was not pretty productive). So I’m leaning in the direction of bouquets and I’ve even started off to investigate which ones I imagine could operate nicely for us.

We’d require some thing tremendous lower-maintenance, that doesn’t need a good deal of treatment from me. You all know my track history with crops so it’s protected to believe that I will want to undertake the identical approach with bouquets. I need to have one thing that will fundamentally choose care of alone and preferably a thing that will appear again year soon after 12 months without having far too much intervention from me.

The tulips in the group backyard garden in Totnes in full bloom

Currently, I have been wondering about tulips. It started off when the tulips in the tiny community backyard garden across the street from my coworking space started out to bloom. The back garden became a riot of color (as you can see in this reel I made for Instagram) and I uncovered myself frequently sitting on the bench just to admire these superbly daring bouquets, which I understood pretty much nothing about.

Just hunting at them made me sense so considerably lighter and happier so I made the decision to do some attain and operate out if there was any opportunity that I would be capable to have tulips in our backyard garden. It was also all over this time that I acquired an email from Dutch Developed all about double tulips, which I hadn’t read of. But as before long as I noticed the photos I was smitten and I knew that these display-stopping tulips were being for me.

So let’s take a tiny glimpse at some of the queries I had about this lovely selection and what I uncovered alongside the way.

What are double tulips?

Snow Crystal tulips

As opposed to the iconic picture of a tulip with six significant petals that we are all so accustomed to observing, double tulips have additional levels of petals which gives them a very diverse look. They have massive, very long-lasting, peony-like bouquets that can seem fluffy and ruffled, or dense and demure.

Just like typical tulips, double tulips occur in a huge variety of colors, from comfortable pinks to vivid oranges to deep purples. Not like normal tulips, double tulips are really massive, with stems that can get to up to 20” and blooms that effortlessly measure 4” throughout.

When to plant tulip bulbs?

When the evenings are getting colder and there’s a hint of pumpkin spice in the air, it’s time to get out the gardening gear. Like all tulips, double tulips have to have to be planted in autumn. In the British isles, it is recommended that you plant your bulbs in Oct and November. Nevertheless, you can get away with accomplishing this as late as December or January and however have them bloom in spring.

Where by to plant tulip bulbs?

Remaining: Monte Carlo tulips | Suitable: Orange Princess tulips

Double tulips should be planted in a sunny, sheltered location in which they will be safeguarded from wind and rain. As with all flower bulbs, you require to make guaranteed that the soil is perfectly-draining. Dig a hole which is 3 situations as deep as the bulbs, preferably 10-15cms deep, then address with soil and drinking water very well. Double tulips glance best in teams of at minimum 10-15 tulips but make positive you plant each and every bulb 10-15cms aside.

Are double tulips perennials?

Some tulip bulbs only bloom for one particular yr (annuals), whilst many others come back again just about every yr (perennials). Unfortunately, double tulips are not perennials, meaning you’ll have to plant new types just about every calendar year. But that does have its strengths given that it means that every single year you get to pick out a further combination of outdated favourites and remarkable newcomers from the large assortment of double tulips.

When do double tulips bloom?

Left: Orange Princess tulips | Correct: Blue Wow tulips

Double tulips are planted in autumn and typically need 8 to 16 weeks before they start to sprout. A flowering plant will then surface in 15 to 30 times. Tulips really don’t are inclined to bloom for really long sadly and this way too relies upon on the disorders. If they have had a great spring they can bloom for 1-2 months, but if it is been really warm, the bouquets may only previous a couple times.

You can prolong the bloom of tulips but picking out versions that bloom at distinctive moments and this way you can get a superior number of weeks of bouquets in advance of they die. Some double tulips bloom early in spring, while other folks are late bloomers so by choosing a wide variety of double tulip bulbs you can definitely stretch the flowing period of time.

What to do at the time the tulips die?

Tulips usually bloom from March to May well and after they have flowered they will die off. As shortly as the flower has dropped all its petals, the seed pod has turned brown and the foliage has begun to die back again and turned brown then you must prune your tulips back again.

As soon as the double tulips have died, you will, regretably, require to plant additional bulbs if you want to see the bouquets return future calendar year.

Abba tulips

Wherever can you obtain double tulips?

If you imagine that additional is more and you would like your spring backyard to replicate that, DutchGrown is the fantastic place to purchase your double tulips. Their best-measurement bulbs, developed in prime Dutch soil promise a late spring exhibit like no other. A couple clicks on their web-site and your get is placed. They’ll make absolutely sure, your flower bulbs will get there at the right planting time in autumn.

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So it’s effortless to see why your back garden wants these amazing bouquets. They might not be in bloom for extensive but when they are they include drama, color and a sense of celebration to the garden.

What do you imagine? Have you at any time planted double tulips in your yard? If not, would you give it a go? Let me know in the feedback.