Let's Talk About Tulips.
I have way too many beautiful tulip images to spread out into one blog so I thought I would condense them down to 3 or 4 collages so that you won't miss out. Tulips are admired the world over and have been cultivated for centuries and are very significant plants. In the 1630's, one bulb was worth a fortune and 'tulip mania' was created, particularly in Holland. In fact, one bulb may have been worth more than the cost of a horse or a carriage.
Frantic trading resulted and then inevitably a crash of the tulip market which was devastating for investors. Today, the Netherlands are the world's main producer of commercial tulip plants, producing as many as 3 billion bulbs annually. Most of these are exported around the world.
There are over 6,000 cultivars with a wide range of colours and even shapes; all having the tall elegant shape which is so easily recognizable. The Tulip (Tulipa) is a member of the Liliaceae family. The word tulip is thought to be derived from a Persian word for turban. They love temperate climates and flower in the spring.
Many tulip species can cross-pollinate with each other, and when wild tulip populations overlap geographically with other tulip species or subspecies, they often hybridise and create mixed populations. Most commercial tulip cultivars are complex hybrids, and often sterile.
Modern tulips have been bred from wild species which originated from the mountainous regions of central Asia, but it was their popularity in Turkey and then the Netherlands, that made them famous.
Tulips have been likened to goblets with their distinctive, wine glass appearance and straight stem. Varieties include the Parrot Tulips which are characterized by their feathery edges and then there are the fringed ones, and the double-petalled Tulips.
Tulip bulbs should be planted at the start of the cool season - in autumn or early winter. Once the tulip has flowered, it needs to be fertilized to provide energy for the following year, but the leaves need to remain. The foliage must be left to wither, yellow and die down before you lift the bulb.
THANK YOU FOR VIEWING. HAVE A GREAT DAY.