(not) tiptoeing and tulips

I have injured my “bad” (ie, stroke-affected) leg and have spent the past week “resting” (groan) while performing physio-sanctioned exercises. I’ve been really missing my long beach walks, and am feeling rather irritable and frustrated, but on the plus side, I’ve graded and knitted up a new design, read several Julian Symons novels (a mid-century British crime writer whose interesting work is new to me), and have been able to spend every day outside during a spell of beautiful spring weather. None of these things are to be argued with, especially the last.

Willow warblers have arrived, along with the first swallows, and the landscape is now alive with birdsong and busy nest building. Each morning, the garden looks a little different, and it really is marvellous seeing it come to life again. I spent last spring carefully watching what was happening in each area, so I could understand what had been planted where (and why), and several of the perennials popping up already feel to me like old friends.

such as this bleeding heart

or this candelabra primula. It’s also rewarding seeing some of the areas I’ve planted now starting to do well.

Like my alpine area . . .

or my “magic bells”, now flowering alongside the tall stems of pheasants’ eye narcissus.

We previously lived in a rather high, exposed location with a very heavy clay soil: a place which, as a neighbour lamented to me on more than one occasion, was not really suitable for growing tulips.

Last year I was delighted to discover several beautiful tulips growing happily in the mill garden: in one sunny bed, with a distinctive dark red colour scheme, there is tulip “queen of night”

. . . elsewhere there are white tulips, including this one, (which must be a “white parrot” ?)

. . . and this somewhat simpler white variety, whose name I do not know.

Meanwhile, the front of the long, shady bed that sits behind the house is punctuated with the gorgeous bright pink pops of species tulip “little beauty”.

. . .whose elegant cups, opening with the sunlight every morning, seem to be particularly loved by pollinators

These tiny pink blooms have been planted alongside blue flowers of similarly small stature . . .

. . .like forget me nots

and bluebells.

I find the combination of these cerise pinks and purpley blues completely delightful.

Having discovered I could actually grow tulips here, I just might have gone a bit tulip mad during the bulb sales towards the end of last autumn. And I have to say that my tulip madness seems to have grown rather than diminished now that the ones I planted myself are actually beginning to flower.

This is “Wild Romance” (above) and “Francoise” (below), which I planted in blue pots outside the mill’s front door.

and in another pot around the back, here is the first bloom of the very striking and streaky “Prinses Irene”

The majority of the (gulp) several hundred tulip bulbs I planted last November are of the viridiflora type. These are often described as reliable perennials, so I have planted them in groups of 50, in grass, hoping they will settle in. All of these are looking good: the “Spring Green” and “Groenland” group are now in bud, and “Mistress Mystic” is just about to flower. What excitement!

The tulips I’ve shown here are only the first to have appeared, and I think in a few weeks I might well have quite a show. I do hope you won’t mind more photographs of my new floral obsession then.

Writing about the garden has definietly made me bit less grumpy about my currently immobile state. This can only be a good thing.

Enjoy your Sunday!