When the tulips come rushing in at The Colorblends Spring Garden, the scene is electric. You can feel the energy. Tulip blends are planted in medium-sized blocks. With only a strip by your sidewalk or a block running along your home’s foundation, you can experience the thrill firsthand.

Skyliners

At The Garden, there is something for everyone. While strolling through, you will see how the blends stack up—side by side. And you can choose favorites. Whether you prefer tulips that make wonderful slender silhouettes like Skyliners, or a blend that includes big, voluptuous doubles, seeing the blends helps you bring ideas home. Get ready for a Discovery Fest.

Bouquet Beaucoup

Double Drama

If you’ve never seen double tulips before, get ready for an awakening. We’re talking about frilly blossoms jampacked with petals. Every blossom has a density that’s intense. Within a blend, those double flowers form a froth, fill the space, and create a backdrop for daintier single flowers to strut their stuff. When visitors stop and behold Bouquet Beaucoup at The Garden, the full-bodied yellow and purple doubles in that blend bring the more hushed single white, pink, and purple-etched tulips up a notch. Ditto for the racy Wheels Up blend blooming nearby—its fiery single purple and red tulips sing against plump saucy yellow doubles forming a base just a few inches below. That’s art.

Wheels Up

And talking about tulips that deliver—although the parrot blend Tukano is not composed of double flowers, the immense flowers in this brew are so big, bold, and impressive, they rival the dimensions of doubles. We’re talking massive.

Tukano

Daffodils Gone Double

It’s not only about tulips. Venture just a few feet off the sidewalk and you are going to meet daffodil Sir Winston Churchill. There’s no missing him, because each double flower is like a big poufy popcorn ball dipped in butter. And the scent floating from this fully double narcissus is incredibly evocative. Long blooming (like many fellow double daffs) and boasting ultra-strong stems, this narcissus is as memorable as its namesake.

Sir Winston Churchill

Just a few steps away, you will encounter a clutch of Queen’s Day daffodils. These hefty pompoms form a nest of many petals packed into an impressive package. Again, you get a lot of impact out of every flower. They’re an eye full. The take home: Do double duty and spring will be double dramatic.

Queen’s Day

 

About the Author

Author, garden writer, lecturer, blogger, and photographer Tovah Martin has spent decades working with and writing about bulbs. An honorary member of the Garden Club of America, her most recent book, The Garden in Every Sense and Season, was awarded the Gold Medal from GardenComm. A fanatical hands-on organic gardener outdoors and inside, she digs into Furthermore, her own 7-acre Connecticut farmstead.