Heirloom Tulip Bulbs

This “coffee-brown, maroon-shaded” gem is “undoubtedly the most attractive of the brown tulips,” said the John Lewis Childs catalog in 1920 when tulips in so-called art shades such as bronze, terra-cotta, and mauve were the height of fashion. It’s certainly one of our favorites! Dutch Breeder/Single Late, 18-22”, zones 4a-7b(8bWC), from the Hortus Bulborum. See our other brown tulips. Chart and care.

This exceptionally rare tulip is “bronze crimson bordered with orange,” according to the 1889 Rawson catalog. But most gardeners over the past 196 years would have seen it as simply red trimmed with yellow – one of the most popular color combinations in tulips since the very first were brought into Western gardens in the 1500s – and, as the 1865 Vick’s catalog described it, “splendid.” Single Early, 10-12”, zones 4a-7b(8bWC), from the Hortus Bulborum. Chart and care. If you’d like to be notified when it’s back in stock, sign up for an email alert.

If we had to choose a dozen landmark varieties to summarize the whole amazing history of tulips, this 400-year-old miniature would be one of them. Just 6 inches tall and extra early blooming, ‘Red and Yellow’ is the grandaddy of the ‘Duc van Tols’, a fabled clan of pixie tulips once grown in every garden and forced in pots for Christmas bloom. In front of purple hyacinths, its tiny flames are stunning. 6”, zones 4b-7b(8bWC), from the Hortus Bulborum. Chart and care.

Short, sweet, and extra-early, the ‘Duc van Tols’ grew in every stylish garden from about 1600 to 1900. But then tall, late tulips came into vogue, and the ‘Ducs’ all but vanished. Perfect little miniatures, they’re the earliest traditional garden tulips to bloom each spring. Elizabethan ‘Rose’ is our favorite, an innocent white that’s blushed with a little more pink every day it’s open. 5-7”, zones 4b-7b(8bWC), from the Hortus Bulborum. Chart and care. If you’d like to be notified when it’s back in stock, sign up for an email alert.

Here’s a vanilla that’s far from plain – and deliciously fragrant! An ancestor of today’s lily-flowered tulips, it’s a Devon-cream colored, vase-shaped beauty with long slender petals that twist and reflex gently for an almost whirling effect. Aka ‘White Crown’, Cottage/Lily-flowered, 16”, zones 4a-7b(8bWC) from the Hortus Bulborum. See our other unusually fragrant tulips. Chart and care. If you’d like to be notified when it’s back in stock, sign up for an email alert.

With its almost savage beauty, this bright, dagger-petaled tulip was listed as a wild species in 19th-century catalogs. It’s never been found in the wild, though, and may be a survivor from the early 1700s when tulips much like it (and T. acuminata) ruled in the lavish gardens of the Ottoman Empire. Whatever its origins, it’s spectacular! Lily-flowered, 16”, zones 4a-7b(8bWC), from the Hortus Bulborum. Chart and care.

With its ruffled, flame-shaped petals of soft peach, yellow, and rose, this enchanting mid-century double looks almost like a pastel spring campfire. It’s named for an 18th-century Swedish artist famed for his romantic landscape paintings, and I bet he would have liked this painterly and romantic tulip. Double Early, 10-12”, zones 4b-7a(8aWC), from the Hortus Bulborum. Chart and care. If you’d like to be notified when it’s back in stock, sign up for an email alert.

“Like raspberry-ripple ice cream,” says Anna Pavord in The Tulip, and “one of the best.” It’s also one of the most dramatic of modern parrots, with a whirling-dervish intensity that rivals that of much older parrots such as ‘Amiral de Constantinople’. Our founder Scott first grew ‘Estella’ 35 years ago, and he says “the outrageous beauty of its first blooms still blazes in my memory.” Aka ‘Gay Presto’, parrot, 18-20”, zones 3a-7b(8bWC), from Holland. Chart and care.

“An old friend, entrancing in its rich brownish scarlet tints,” wrote famed plantsman J. Horace McFarland in 1927 of this once highly fashionable tulip. Although first offered about 1906, it was originally one of 400 “breeder” or self-colored tulips in the fabulous collection of Vincent van der Vinne which was sold at auction in 1863. Dutch Breeder/Single Late, 22-24”, zones 4a-7b(8bWC), from the Hortus Bulborum. Chart and care. If you’d like to be notified when it’s back in stock, sign up for an email alert.

This violet-scented wildflower has small, yellow, almond-shaped flowers that nod in bud and then open wide in the sun. Gerard pictured it in his great Herbal of 1597, Jefferson grew it at Monticello, and it’s naturalized almost like a weed throughout Pennsylvania Dutch country – and our garden. Aka T. florentina, 8-14”, zones 5a-8a(8bWC), from Holland. See our other unusually fragrant tulips. Chart, care, and learn more.