TULIPS

When I was a kid the Joseph Horne Company in downtown Pittsburgh had a big Spring event every year around the twenty-first of March. The whole first floor would be filled with flowering trees and thousands of Spring flowers and shrubs. They also had live birds in white cages in the displays, and perfume sprayers as you entered through the revolving doors with lilac and lily of the valley scents. In one area they had huge glass vases filled with hundreds of tulips in every shade and shape. You could pick out the ones you liked and order the bulbs right there, and they'd then be delivered to you in the Fall, just in time to plant them for the following Spring.

I remember planting "Red Emperor" tulips with my Mom on a cold Thanksgiving weekend when I was about nine or ten. Those particular tulips are still available, and one of the first to bloom. Now they come in yellow and orange,but I still prefer the red ones with their black centers and broad petal spread. Our first Woof also had her eye on our tulips, which we discovered a little too late one year.

When my cousin and I moved into a big old house together I came across a wholesale catalog for Spring bulbs and we ordered hundreds of them. When they were delivered we were astounded by how many crates there were. We had friends over for a planting party, and got to work on the thousands of bulbs, and planted all day. About a week later I received a call from the company saying that they had over-shipped the order by four times..and that I should return the extra bulbs....which of course was impossible. They finally relented when I explained that I'd never ordered wholesale before and consequently had no idea of what to expect. That Spring felt like an earthquake in the garden and all around the house. We had tulips aplenty.

Over the years I've discovered that most tulips only last one season...unlike the ones I knew as a kid. However, the "Darwin Hybrid" tulips are really perennial..and very reliable.

They're tall and strong...like a "French Tulip"...and they last for years and years. I buy them from Van Bourgondien Wholesale (www.kvbwholesale.com.) ( anybody can buy from them.)

I always tell people that you have to be a true optimist to plant tulips...because it's about the last thing you feel like doing on a cold Autumn day when the garden is already starting to go to sleep....but come early April, you'll be really really glad you did.