As well as some delightful period tulips and daffodils in the Gardens we have, this year, introduced the ‘wild tulip’ … the mummy of all those later fancy ones.
Tulipa sylvestris, known as the ‘wild’ or ‘florentine’ tulip is a species tulip noted ‘somewhere in Italy’ as early as 1594. Our suppliers Thomas Etty esq describes it thus
“Violet scented almond-shaped lemon yellow flowers in mid April. Naturalises well in grass. Said, by some, to have first travelled to these shores attached upon the roots of grape vines brought from Italy by the Romans.”
Volunteers have been deadheading the daffs along the Holly Walk bank revealing the wild tulips and allowing them to make their mark. A really special addition to the month.
Other varieties of note this year are;
- the jolly scarlet and yellow of Kaiserkroon (‘kings crown’) from 1620,
- the 16th century double white poeticus plenus and pheasants eye
- and of the later varieties we have sneaked in – Queen of the Night tulip (pre 1939) and Rinjveld’s Early Sensation daff., 1926.