Friday, April 27, 2012

When tulips don't deliver

This is the first spring where I'm not all that happy for how the tulips turned out. Instead of going the usual supermarket or nursery route like I usually do, I ordered bulbs from Holland, specifically from a company called Floral Dispatch. The bulbs weren't that expensive and shipping was reasonable enough, but so far only 1 out of the 4 have turned out like what they look like online.


Ollioules - these are the ones that lived up to their description of being 55 cm tall with rose-pink petals edged with silver-white. They are large tulips and mine was already up and blooming around the third week of March.


Apricot Impression - the second group to emerge in the early part of April. Online photos showed blooms with a pale orange-pink hue, but these are definitely not going there. I was also hoping that they would top the 55 cm height as described but so far I've got a variation between 40-46 cm.


Jaap Groot - I like how intensely yellow these are but they don't look anything like the two-toned blooms in the catalog. The petal edges should be pale yellow or white and height description suggest 60 cm. Mine tops out at 45 cm but maybe it's a little too early to tell since they recently bloomed about a week ago. I'm still waiting on the 4th tulip - Florosa viridiflora - pinkish white petals edged in fuchsia with long greenish-yellow flames.

Today's high: 20.5°C / 69°F

2 comments:

Andrea said...

Although their not exactly the colors you chose i think they look beautiful.

Rowena said...

As far as tulips go I can't complain - it's the extra moola that it cost me to special order these from Holland. I'm sticking with italian supermarket and nursery offerings from now on...atleast they always turn out like what's pictured in the photos!