‘Ice Follies’ Tulips
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- October
- 19
October is the ideal month to plant tulips and other spring-blooming bulbs. If you’re looking for a really showy tulip with huge blooms, why not try a red and white dazzler called ‘Ice Follies’?
(photo from the Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center)
For me, tulips are all about big blooms and bold, bright colors. Even a little garish is good.
As tulip lovers know, most fall into very distinct categories. ‘Ice Follies’ is in the Triumph class, which is a cross between the Darwin and Early types.
Triumph tulips are excellent for indoor forcing and not so reliable as perennial tulips that will come back from year to year. They bloom in mid-spring.
Like most bulbs, ‘Ice Follies’ tulips look best when planted in bouquets of 5 to 15 bulbs. Plant the bulbs about 8 inches deep and 3 inches apart and expect to see blooms that are 18 to 20 inches tall.
Tulips prefer full sun to light shade and well-drained soil.
When the foliage begins to emerge in April, spray the shoots with a deer-repellent and continue spraying every week or so as they grow. If you’ve got a major deer problem, go with daffodils, not tulips.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, October 19th, 2008 at 5:19 pm by Bill Cary.
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Bill Cary grew up in Louisville, Ky. His gardening was limited to growing parsley and impatiens on the windowsill of Manhattan walkups until the mid-1990s when he bought a rundown old chicken farm on 8 acres in the Hudson Valley. Now he spends his weekends chasing deer, hacking away at invasive shrubs and vines and wondering why he doesn`t have more meadow and less lawn.
