The Fire of Tulips

The place is awash with tulips.  And to think I used to think them vulgar, gaudy, like plastic beakers for a children’s picnic, not my thing at all because I was too shy and introverted.  But these sing and dance and do the cancan, and all I can do is take hands and join in, and laugh.

They’re mostly Apeldoorn varieties, plain Apeldoorn, Golden Apeldoorn and Apeldoorn Elite, because these are mostly perennial, coming up year after year.  The fiery colours mix well. (One year I had in nearby pots some purple ones, which looked most disapproving. It might have worked if I’d mixed them altogether, maybe).  At the base of each tulip bowl is a patch of shining ebony, and a pale stigma with three bent legs like the Isle of Man crest.

Already, some are doing their ecstatic Dance of Death, twisting, bending stem and petals in all directions.  Soon will come the pastel shades of summer, the pinks, the geraniums, lobelias and more. The garden will be quieter.

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