#Perennials made easy! Species #Tulips: A Walk on the Wild Side
Gardeners in the western world have been hybridizing tulips for about 400 years. The resulting flowers have been varied, luscious, and mostly beautiful. However, tulips started out as wildflowers that grew on mostly rocky terrain from Central Asia to the Balkans. These wildflowers, and their near kin, are grown today as species tulips.
Tulipa clusiana
This seems like a good day to write about species tulips. For one thing, their season is coming to a close. For another, I was inspired by a recent post on this subject by Annette on My Personal Eden.
While not as sumptuous as their highly bred cousins, species tulips are beautiful in their own right and have a number of advantages over the hybrids. For one thing, under the right conditions they usually live longer than the hybrids, and may even naturalize in your garden. For another, the bulbs are smaller and are…
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