Tulipa 2009

[johnw]

We forced a large pot of Tulipa 'Show Girl' 'Playgirl' for the front steps. I believe it was recommended by the RHS.  It goes through many colour transformations starting a rich cream. Rather good and sturdy for this purpose and lasts a long time.  You can see a laggard at the bottom.

Hot here today.

johnw  - +26c

[Lesley Cox]

Raspberry Ripple ice-cream.

[Boyed]

Jonh,

'Show Girl' is nice.
I wonder where you get it. As far as I know this tulip (sport of Cottage tulip 'Chappaqua') is commercially not vaialable.

Lately have not enough free time at work to participate in the forum.
Just wanted to show one of my fav. tulips, about which reminded me your 'Shoiw Girl'.

Tulipa SLG Cottage 'Annushka', bred during Soviet era by famous Belorussian breeder V.M. Kudriavtseva in 1972. It is a cross between Cottage 'Mother's Day' and Lily-flowered 'Elegance Alba'. A nice tulip with tender colour.

[johnw]

Boyed - Try C.J. Ruigrok in Holland for Showgirl 'Playgirl'.  It goes through many changes before it's "raspberry ripple" climax.

If not try Vanhof and Blokker.  I will try to find out  which company was the supplier.

johnw

[Onion]

When I see the recommendation from John for 'Show Girl', I want to ask if someone can recommend a address for Tulipa greigii-cultivars?
In the trade in Germany only 20 diffrent cultivars available.

Thanks to all for helping

[Lesley Cox]

'Annushka' is beautiful.

[Boyed]

Uli,
Greiii tulips are among my favourites and I thoroughly study the trends. Unfortunately very few greigii cultivars are offered in trade nowadays and I should mention that mostly the less decorative ones dominate in the market. I consulted some Dutch growers about the situation and they say that the reason is that these tulips require more care and less sutable and profitable for mechanical culture.
I can recommend Polish KGardens. They grow quite a good range of very beautiful non-commercial varieties, but in small scale.

http://kgardens.org/T1_IV.htm

It is a gala time for me when my greigii tulips are in bloom. I made lots of photos and will show some in the forum as soon as I have enough free time.

John,
I made a search in the google for the companies you mentioned. One doesn't have a web-site; the other's have, but its website is private and for registered customers. Anyway, I wonder what varieties they grow.

The only thing I notice lately that all the companies offer the same range of boring tulips every year, nothing special. It is very hard to find a nurcery, which offers something different.

[Onion]

Zhirair,

thanks for the address. I see always the same thing. Only the mass producted cultivars survived.

[Roma]

The last tulip to flower, Tulipa sprengeri.  It self sows in my garden and takes up more space than I would like but it is quite spectacular when in flower.

[Boyed]

This post is especially for Luit.
If you remember, last year there was a discussion about black tulips, and I mentioned tulipa 'Black Leader'. This is the darkest one, a Dutch variety, which was excluded from the register a long time ago, I don't know why. It is preserved by the only grower V.K. Khondyrev in Russia. I don't like black tulips much, mainly because of their small sizes of blooms. Last fall I reseived some bulbs of it directly from the grower and was knocked down by its beauty, flower shape, flower size and darkness of colour. In comparison to it the famous 'Queen of Night' is zero.

I attache its photos, plus cmparison pics with 'Bacchus' and 'Queen of Night'. 'bacchus' is very large-flowering variety, so I selected medium sized flower for harmony. The camara reflected its exact colour.

[Boyed]

Some Breeder tulips

'Barmaley' - Z.P. Botschantzeva 1955
'Don Eugo' - an old Dutch variety, that is lost in Holland
'Irish Coffee' - very robust, vigorous tulip
'Louis XIV'
'The Skipper' - fringed sport from 'Louis XIV'

[Boyed]

More pics

1. 'Barmaley'
2. 'Barmaley', 'Louis XIV' - in the center

[Maggi Young]

Roma: I have ONE T. sprengeri  in flower! Happily, the last seed IS growing !! Finally!! Just think, in a few years I should have a fab display.....


Zhirair: Black Leader is astonishing, so beautiful. In the photo with the red and green variety the black colour really sings out.

[Lesley Cox]

It's an incredible colour. I wish it were available here. 'Queen of the Night'  is the darkest we have. And I do like all those odd browny/bronzy colours too.

[Boyed]

Lesley,

Those Breeder tulips are very valauble for garden, maybe beacuse they were specially bred for garden purposes. They have good sizes, good virus resitance and multiplication rate; and the most improtant is that they can grow and succesfully bloom very year for over 20 years without lifting. So you plant them and forget. Of course, for maximum vigour and performance it is recommendable to harvest them very other year.

Modern varieties lack these advantages and withour annual lifting they degradate from year to year.