Last year I bought two packs from Home Depot's garden center last fall and was expecting to be disappointed once again. After obsessing over this bulb for two years it feels very gratifying to finally have it planted in the garden. The funny thing is that I just got my catalog from Brent And Becky's Bulbs and have a few new bulbs that I am lusting after. Tulip 'Black Parrot', 'Black Hero' which is a double sport of 'Queen of Night' and also Tulip 'Deirdre' which is an interesting almost green mutation.
I also have a 'Black Parrot' tulip.
I planted "Deidre" last fall, but put it in a bed with a bunch of more colorful tulips, so it got lost. If you plant some next year, I recommend planting them in a group by themselves so you can really see them. They are interesting.
ReplyDeleteHi Carol,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip! I'm have a follow up to your post but I'm going to ask it on your blog to make sure you see it.
Interesting to read you had one of your trials of this bulb come up yellow. Somewhere around 10-15 years ago, I planted my first tulip bulbs (10, I believe Queen of Night, purchased by good ol' mail order catalog through Michigan bulb company), and I just moved out of that home last Fall. I left them in the ground the entire time and there were still 8-9 coming up every year (they'd multiplied, but I'd planted them far enough apart I could easily distinguish where each original planting spot was). They all stayed "black" (deep purple) for the first couple of years, but after that all but 3 mutated a couple of times over the years.
ReplyDeleteThe first round of mutation was that some would come up pale yellow and develop a pinkish line around the edge of each petal in the very early bloom stage, and then the edge would turn purple. Those blooms would become a much paler yellow, and develop some very subtle sort-of veining of purple throughout each petal as the blooms started to open fully. It wasn't a very beautiful final bloom, but I liked them because they were interesting to observe.
The others in the first round of mutation were white with the same sort of behavior as those yellows.
The next (and final) round of mutation, was that all of the blooms (aside from the 3 that always remained black/deep purple) were white with some purple edging and sort of variegated purple throughout each petal, with nice veining. They were beautiful.
(I have a couple of pics on my flickr/smugmug sites; you can look for user Lwmoore if interested...you'll see a couple of the black/deep purple tulips which were taken within the past few years, and the final mutation (as far as I'll ever know) of the white w/purple which I really loved. Ignore the macro pic which I oversaturated for prints - that doesn't reflect what the flowers looked like for these purposes.)
None of these had any signs of virus or other disease, as discussed in your post about tulip viruses - they just morphed, I'd assumed that's the chance we take with hybrids(?). Anyway, I DID have others that developed the viral signs you discussed, so thank you for that info.
Thank you for this wonderful blog! I just stumbled across black velvet petunias (and the two stripey versions) at a Farmer's Market yesterday, and still haven't been able to catch my breath...so incredibly beautiful. I bought half a dozen and I've been researching today, and am really enjoying your blog. Now that I know black plant options aren't 'impossible' like I'd thought, I'm next going looking for black mondo grass and will try that (I live in Portland, OR, so I'm hoping I can pull it off). Although, at the same time, I'm shopping for black irises online. I would never have thought those a possibility until I read your blog, and now I've found there are quite a few options, some of which actually do appear to be VERY black!