Bulb Design 4.0 - Me and my Blue Aimables

My fall bulb order has arrived and this is what I got, 50 of them.  It's the 1916 tulip 'Blue Aimable' and here's what I know about it: "Though it’s not blue, it’s a soft, silvery lilac that combines amiably with just about everything. Even better, its tall, graceful blossoms last and last in bloom, longer than any other tulip we’ve grown. Darwin, 24 inches, zones 3-7, from Holland."  And under $20 for the bunch.

I've arrived at this simple 50-of-one-tulip design idea after a colorful assortment of tulip design failures:

• Tulips bloom too early, competing with the daffodils and leaving the border all spent-leafy in late spring.
• Different tulips fail to bloom together, as intended.
• Tulips fail to be the imagined color.
• Tulips fail to STAY the right color, morphing from pink to - eek! - orange and clashing big-time with their neighbors.

Finally the only thing standing between me and tulip design paradise are the backyard squirrels and y'all remember how I foiled them last year using pepper flakes?  Next year it'll be perfect.

I'm not even worried that I don't know which of these two photos accurately depicts the damn flowers, or if they'll be some other version of blue-purple-pink.  How can they not look great against the backdrop of major dogwood action, minor viburnum action, and a scattering of blooming azaleas?  God, just thinking about spring is making me hot.  You know, gardener hot.

Comments

[Pam J.]

This isn't about you and your blue amiables but I must comment on the new (Baby) Susan picture. Adorable to say the least. But what happened to those chunky arms & legs? Worked them off in the garden, no doubt. The photo captures your ranting potential very nicely.

[Pam/Digging]

Whoa, thinking about spring is making me hot too, but not in a good way. We just this second got some cool fall air. I'm not even thinking about spring yet. (I do wish I could grow tulips though, but it's just too hot for them here.)

[firefly]

I hope I don't jinx the spring display with this question, but do the squirrels not sample the tulips just before or as they bloom?

I don't know which variety was here when I moved in, but the squirrels love munching the flowers.

Oddly, they don't seem too interested in digging up the bulbs.

[Millie]

Oh, never mind the tulips, you are very cute when you're pudgy. Here's to more hot fudge sundaes!

[Pam L]

I don't have the discipline or foresight you do to redo my bulb design each year. I keep cramming more bulbs in to where I'm always trying not to dig up the old bulbs to fit more in, like yesterday when I added 40 more crocus, 30 more Dutch iris and another 24 hyacinths. But then, I like the cacophony of the multicolored look. And when my reds and yellows (bought in a huge "mixed" bag that turned out to be almost all red and yellow the first year here) morph into orange stripes, mores the better for me. They look great with the Queen of the Nights and Blue Parrots

[chuck b.]

I'm too afraid to put red and yellow together. What if I get McDonalds?

I really like this 50-of-one-tulip design idea. It will bring a strong sense of continuity to your garden--assuming you're going to plant them in a number of different places. And that lilacy purple is one of my favorite colors in the garden.

Last year was my first time with tulips and I bought a few of everything that caught my eye at the nursery, and what diaster that was. I couldn't wait to pull them out and be done with it. (So, yes, a tulip design plan is a good thing to have.)

This year I just bought several bulbs of only two different kinds. One set is going in pots on my roof garden, and I'm not sure about the other set, but they might go in pots in the backyard garden. I like the look of containerized flowers in the garden, especially containers with showy flowers like tulips.

I bought the bulbs from some random catalog that came in the mail...Van Dycks, I think. I hope it's not the same catalog I bought dahlia tubers from that came up a totally different color. My local nursery didn't have a very interesting selection of tulips last year, and I didn't know about the specialty bulb operations I've read about on garden blogs lately. Blogs have been an important (and very welcome) part of my learning curve wrt/ where to buy, ahem, plant material.

[Annie in Austin]

I miss tulips! I think you've chosen a lovely variety for your garden, Susan. At one time I bought lots of white ones [Maureen, maybe??] with Queen of the Night. Those tulips never lasted as long as the McDonald colors- it was the orangey red ones that lived on for years and years.
Ha, ha, Chuck B. - plant material!! You dare say that on this night, when the veil has thinned?? Henry's gonna get you!

Annie at the Transplantable Rose