Led by the nose...

We’ve waited long, dark months for this. Perhaps it’s the wait itself, perhaps just the stop-start nature of April’s capricious weather, but when spring finally arrives I initially feel an overwhelming sense of relief, as if it were visual proof that the world is still turning and all is fine. Persephone has served her penance and is free again.

I’ve been building up this tulip planting for some years - I don’t lift any of them, I just keep adding more of the same varieties each autumn. But like squirrels who can’t remember where they buried every hazelnut, I can never recall where the transitions from one colour to another are supposed to begin. It doesn’t really matter - the scruffy overlaps and the mixed heights of old and new bulbs help to create the relaxed style that I prefer.

The vagaries of tulip buying only add to the muddle. I’ve been trying to find a warm apricot hue to link ‘Cream Perfection’ in the lower bed with the aptly named ‘Brown Sugar’ in the top bed. I tried ‘Apricot Beauty’ this year, but as you can see if you zoom in to the picture above, it’s more of a dirty pink. I don’t know if that’s because that’s what colour it’s supposed to be, or if I’ve been sent the wrong bulbs. I should take them out, and I may decide to do just that. Truth is though, I probably won’t get round to it until the petals fall off and then of course I won’t know which to leave and which to pull out. Odds are I’ll be wincing at them again next spring.

Some combinations really don’t work though, and have to be dealt with. Last year I replanted the exotic garden after the walled garden was finished. Inevitably old bulbs were buried in the upheaval of replanting and two old favourites came up this spring - the caramel toned ‘Brown Sugar’ and ‘Banja Luca’, a gloriously vibrant tulip, vermillion with buttercup yellow streaks. Both are reliably perennial and I adore them both.

Orange and purple are meant to look good together so last autumn I planted Tulip ‘Purple Prince’ which has turned out to be a rich vibrant colour that I like very much, but it’s not purple, is it? Magenta, perhaps? It works perfectly with the zingy Euphorbia amygdaloides ‘Purpurea’ behind it, and with the fresh gold foliage of Hakonecloa macra ‘Aureola’ emerging nearby.

However next to ‘Purple Prince’ my much loved ‘Brown Sugar’ looks muddy. And ‘Banja Luca’ and the Prince fought for attention like a pair of chest-puffing alpha males. As it happens, I’m writing this listening to Sparks’ ‘This town ain’t big enough for the both of us’. How apt. After much heart-wrenching deliberation, I’ve taken out my old favourites and relocated them. Purple Prince has the stage to itself and looks suitably regal amid its humbler companions.

I promised you scent in the headline and here’s your intro…

This colour combination is a complete accident - and one I will take full credit for. Sumptuous orange with pure white - what a knockout pairing it is. Despite the outrageously ruinous cost of these Imperial fritillary bulbs, I shall splash out on at least thirty of them this autumn to plant under the other birches to make a spectacular show.

Long before you see these improbably exotic, totally hardy bulbs, you smell them. In keeping with their punkish looks, the smell is more of a stink than a scent, more akin to fox poo than rose-water. Talking of punks, who could have predicted, back in that beige, listless summer of 1977 that the snarling Johnny Rotten would turn out in 2023 to be a role model for compassion and unconditional love, caring for his dementia-stricken wife in her final years until her death last week. Certainly not my poor, horrified parents who feared that their carefully turned out offspring would be ruined by the malign forces of the Sex Pistols. But we turned out all right, didn’t we?

Where were we…

Ah yes,… En masse, the tulips emit a subtle, fresh scent, most of which has been blasted away by Storm Noa which lashed at us for four days this week. But as you walk through the garden you seem to step into pools of strong, sweeter aromas. I see visitors stop and then turn, looking quizzically at nearby plants to try and spot the source. Eventually their nose leads them through the tulips to the top of the three borders in the first photo.

If their olfactory senses take them all the way, they’ll end up at a Viburnum - I think the one pictured above is V. carlessii, but we have V. burkwoodii too and both are phenomenally richly scented. The pink shrub on the right is a shrubby honeysuckle, Lonicera syringantha. It’s a scruffy thing, with thin, bitty branches, but it belts out its sweet fragrance across the whole garden.

These otherwise unremarkable shrubs draw our vistors uphill, which then reveals more of the tulip displays behind the yew hedge. An old favourite for us is Abu Hassan with Makassar or whichever other good yellow I can get hold off. Without them, this emerging border of mid-season perennials and grasses would just be a sea of greens in April. I’m not really one for bling, myself, but I’m very happy to drape swathes of jewel-like colour through the emerging borders.

Eggshells…

If you’ve skimmed to the end of this post in anticipation of more personal insights, you’re going to be disappointed. But with Easter just behind us I’ve been mindful of eggs and therefore eggshells. So a little thoughtlet for you. If you are able to stomp merrily through life, breaking the odd egg here and there, clearing up the mess and laughing about it, all is fine. But if more eggshells seem to appear every year and you spend an inordinate amount of time and energy tiptoeing around them, well maybe that’s something to step back (carefully!) and muse on.

PS - I’m very happy to say that my life is now eggshell free :-) .