Wind-resistant tulips

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Whenever the weather forecast says it’s going to be windy, my heart sinks. ‘Windy’ means ‘gale force winds’ in my garden. It’s positioned in such a way that it gets the full force of south westerlies, and there’s nothing I can really do about it, as I’ve explained before. All I can do is plant wind-resistant plants such as Erysimum ‘Bowles’s Mauve’ and grasses, and try not to look out of the window while violent gusts toss my precious plants about.

So hats off to the two tulips you can see here, ‘White Triumphator’ and ‘Attila’s Graffiti’, which have endured two days and nights of very strong winds. Some lost their petals, but the stems on all of them stood firm. ‘White Triumphator’ in particular looks almost as good as they did before the windy weather.

I saw ‘White Triumphator’ tulips at the Walled Garden at Mells last spring and loved them as they looked so classy. I chose ‘Attila’s Graffiti’ because they’re ‘Triumph’ tulips, said to stand up to bad weather. I’ve been really pleased with them, too – the flowers have been huge and have flowered for ages, and they contrast really well with the acid yellow flowers of Euphorbia characias subsp. wulfennii and the purple erysimums. I’m defnitely going to grow more Triumph varieties next year.

The same can’t be said of ‘Prinses Irene’ in pots in the front garden – they’ve all been decapitated.

6 thoughts on “Wind-resistant tulips”

  1. Lovely combination! Seeing the advanced state of your Erysimum has made me very jealous – mine are woody stumps with leaves only a couple of centimetres long – I mis-timed the cutting back! The gale force winds of the last few days won’t have helped either. I also adore White Triumphator tulips – really elegant and understated. I can see a few alliums about to joint the party too.

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  2. Yes, as Aileen says, a lovely combination. I was a bit disappointed with my tulips this year and not only because they were ripped to shreds by high wind and rain. No, the colour combination wasn’t right. Instead of buying from a specialist (online) I bought some from a local garden centre. Admittedly they were less expensive, but believe me, if you want some of the more unusual colours, then it pays to buy from a specialist who can offer quality bulbs in colours that set your horticultural pulses racing. I won’t make this mistake again.

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    • Hi Margaret – yes, I think it does pay to buy bulbs online as you get a much better range to choose from. It can be a bit mind boggling, though – I spent hours trawling websites for colours and combinations, and ended up ordering from several. I think the same goes for dahlias – I didn’t get around to ordering tubers online, and ended up with some bog standard ones from the garden centre. It’s so hard to be organised!

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