Well, I’ve had the most wonderful two weeks on the beautiful sub-tropical paradise island of Maderia. The holiday meant that things have gotten rather behind on here so there’s some catching up to do. I should also expand on the context and story behind some of the holiday gallery images in future posts. It has suddenly turned cold back home in recent days and one thing I do not appreciate is returning from a comfortable 24°C to 0°C.

One thing I will appreciate (albeit in spring) are the three pots of tulips I planted just before the holiday. Earlier in the year I said I wasn’t going to do tulips but I caved in, especially when I saw them at reduced price and know the other half likes them. I thought I could turn that into a cheap favour to store up for future use and simultaneously benefit from bold spring colour.

The bulbs are sharing the same pots as the Saffron Crocus (which can be seen just emerging) and those pots aren’t particularly deep so they could be grown as just annuals. There was a bit of hassle with carefully extracting the crocus, refreshing the compost, adding fertiliser, planting the tulips and then putting the crocus back and trying to convince them that they’d never moved. I’m not sure it’s worked.

Since I planted the tulips over a fortnight ago, I’ve forgotten what I bought. I know I have these two:

1. Tulipa “Burgundy” – dark wine red – late spring
2. Tulipa “Tricolette” – creamy yellow with a splash of red – early spring