Ten fail-safe tulips — the varieties you can rely on

I have an unhappy history with tulips and I blame my mother. Of course. This is because, for as long as I remember, she grew tulips that were clustered in the corners of the front garden, a cheerful red-coated greeting committee for all who visited. They were tall and red, bright and brassy. They appeared to be, like daffodils, effortless.

When it came to having my own tulip patch, I wanted something equally effortless but a little more nuanced. After weeks perusing a ridiculous number of options, I opted for subtle ice-creamy colours such as cool pinks and mauves, whites and light apricots. It was years ago, but the bulb order was at least £50. By accident (procrastination is a forte), I didn’t plant them until it was cold. In the spring I waited — and waited. Eventually I dug down and found — no bulbs. We had no squirrels. It had to be mice.

The next year saw the same tulip ordering and planting pantomime but, as the mice were otherwise engaged, the tulip bed looked absolutely luscious. I was now officially addicted. There is a reason that Arthur Parkinson, who is perhaps best described as an avant-gardener, brands tulip bulbs as “crack for the garden consumerholic”. When they work, they are brilliant and leave you wanting more.

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Have we reached peak tulip mania? Many think so, including Parkinson. “I am sort of over tulip porn these days,” he announced this year. “Maybe you need several years of spending stupid money on them and having the endlessly bubbling everlasting (almost) like porridge pots of them to eventually tire of the endless spending, the considering of which ones to plant and then the worry … of fungal disease, of rats, squirrels, mice and pheasants.” (Ah, pheasants, didn’t think of them as the culprits.)

I am definitely not over tulips, but I am worried that tulips are over me. The year after the luscious display was disappointing, with only about 10 per cent flowering — and those had reverted to white. The year after, my tulip bed was empty again. My main success, in subsequent years, has been in pots and so it is with a sense of purpose that I embarked on a mission to find a fail-safe perennial tulip.

“Is there such a thing as a fail-safe tulip?” wonders Anne Barnard of Rose Cottage Plants in Essex. “It’s the way you grow them …” The bulbs need to be planted deep enough (Barnard advises 10-12in) and wait to plant when there’s more than a nip in the air (7C, at least November). Until then they need to be kept in a cool, dry place. All of this is in aid of avoiding the fungal disease tulip fire.

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Tulips may have been in Britain since the 1630s, but they are native to mountain foothills of central Asia and the Mediterranean. They like cold winters and hot, dry summers. This means your mission is, basically, to replicate the conditions from one of the “Stans” (eg Turkmenistan) in your garden. They hate being waterlogged. One tip from Barnard is, in a bed, to plant them with dahlias, which suck up all the moisture in late spring and summer.

My 10 fail-safe tulips

My list of fail-safe (or as good as) tulips is drawn from a wide variety of sources and is a work in progress, but here are the top ten (their divisions are in parentheses):

1. Apeldoorn (Darwin hybrid) Red tulips in a dark pot.

Classic red or yellow tulips as well as blends such as the red/orange ‘Elite’. “They are not fancy but do well. A lot of the modern tulips are one-day wonders,” says Richard Hyde of HW Hyde in West Sussex. “There is more interest in Darwin varieties now because the growers in Holland don’t have to use as many chemicals to produce them and they’re more resistant to disease.”

2. Artist (Viridiflora) Tulipa 'Artist' tulips.

A colourfest from orange to dusky pink, all tinged with green. I have a soft spot for these as the colour combinations are so unusual.

3. Ballerina (Lily-flowered) Orange tulips growing among lettuce and yellow-green plants.

Ballerina

GAP PHOTOS/JONATHAN BUCKLEY

A scented tulip that is on all lists for good perennial tulip performers. Grey-green foliage, orange flowers, flamed with red outside. As graceful as its name suggests.

4. Black Hero (Double late) Close-up of dark purple tulips.