Bulbs: Rainbow of Tulips anticipation, 1 by franknjim

franknjim wrote:
I thought I would share the new tulip bed that I planted last fall. I am eagerly awaiting the blooms as this is only the second time that I have ever planted tulips. I put in about a dozen different varieties arranged according to height and bloom time which was a bit of a challenge since I have very little experience with tulips. I put in approximately 600 bulbs in this bed. I had 764 bulbs but I didn’t want them too crowded in the bed.

There is a lot of wildlife in this area but I am ready for that. I have two types of animal repellants ready to go out within the next two weeks before the tulips start coming up.

Last fall my partner and I bought an old pet cemetery from a county tax sale. Many older people here were worried that someone would buy the property and tear out the cemetery that has been there since the 1960's. We bought it to protect it. When a pet dies it is said that they cross a Rainbow Bridge. This pet cemetery has a small foot bridge at the entrance so I thought that a rainbow shaped tulip bed would be appropriate at the entrance.

I will post more pictures throughout the spring to show the different stages of blooms and colors. According to my last years photos here at the house, the tulips should start emerging before the end of this month. It will be interesting to see if I did this right. Only one variety is super short with much smaller bulbs so they were added once I filled in the bed halfway. I had to use a very large sifter to remove a ton of coal cinders that had been dumped in this area long ago. It took me two days to do this. One day to dig the 8” deep hole and one day to plant it.

These are the varieties I had. I planted most of the ones in low quantities at the house in a new bed just for them.
17 Apricot Beauty
87 Peppermint Stick
77 Banja Luca
67 Apricot Impression
40 Attila
65 Ice Follies
17 Princess Irene
90 Lucky Strike
10 Rosalie
30 Silver Dollar
10 White Elegance
85 World Expression
89 Twister
12 Purple Prince
7 Menton
12 Maureen
22 Angelique
17 Lilac Perfection
10 Spring Green

764 total

This first pic shows the area where I put the new bed.