Looking for reliable tulips

After a grand total of one tulip showing its head in our new garden I'm keen to put some more in this autumn. Soil is reasonably free draining but have heard stories of tulips being treated as annuals? I.e. Not returning.
Are there any suppliers or varieties you would suggest for returning and (hopefully) not flopping over in the slightest breeze? Colours preferably purples, oranges, yellows and whites though don't mind red. Nothing frilly though please! (Doesn't match my personality enough!)

 

yes Charlie - you are right - Tulips are often treated as annuals.

The reason is that they originally came from Turkey and Central Asia, where it gets very hot and dry in the summer. Tulips adapted to this by flowering in spring and then going dormant in the very dry season.

When they grow in Britain, they don't mind our cold wet winters when there are active and preparing to flower. But they hate our wet summers and often rot when they are in their dormant phase. This means that many Tulips don't come back the next year - even though they are technically perennials.

There are two solutions. One is to grow the big blousy hybrids that are so often sold. Then after they have flowered and their leaves have gone brown and shriveled (ie they have gone dormant) dig them up and keep them dry in a shed over the summer, then replant in autumn.

Alternatively, grow the smaller Tulips that are species (ie naturally occuring) or very close to species. I grow some kaufmannianna Tulips - pictured above, and they are thoroughly reliable - I think there are quite a few varieties.


Also I have T. Greigii 'Toronto' which is totally reliable - pictured above. There are probably quite a few different types available in a garden centre with a decent range of Tulips - but look for the word species - or for the name of a species rather than a cultivar name.

 

Thank you for such an informative post Peter. I've seen a collection on crocus, are these a good supplier or can you recommend anywhere else?

 

Charlie - I have to say that I know very little about Tulips and only grow a few. I am aware of the link between species Tulips and perennialness, simply because my background is in science (physics) and I like to try to understand why things happen. I was always aware that many Tulips tended to disappear with time, and that Christopher Lloyd (the famous gardener from Great Dixter) always used to write about lifting bulbs after they had flowered. But it was still some time before I understood the reason why.

In my very limited experience I have found that blousey hybrids flower well in the first year. But when I dug them up after flowering I often found that one big bulb had broken into several smaller bulbs, and these might be too small to flower in the following year. So my inclination today would be to go down the species root. I only have two clumps of species Tulips, but they all come back and flower regularly the following year.

At the risk of repeating what I said earlier I have lifted this comment from the Broadleigh bulbs site :-
The delicate wild or species tulips may have smaller flowers but they are still among the best for value as many of them are reliably perennial in the garden - often spreading to form large displays. The earliest flowering species - Tulip humils and Tulipa turkestanica -start in late February whist Tulipa sprengeri is the last tulip to flower in late May.
One of the most useful groups of tulips are the Kaufmaniana and Greigii hybrids whose large flowered short stemmed flowers come in a spectacular range of bold colours. They are perfect for container cultivation.

This gives you the names of some of the species. Crocus is a very well respected name and I am sure their bulbs would be very good - but it was not easy to see which were species or not. But you can find them on their site if you put the species name in the search field at the top.

I would imagine Broadleigh are good too - though I have no experience of them http://www.broadleighbulbs.co.uk/misc/tuliporder.htm

I would be inclined to put a names such as 'Tulipa greigii' into Google and see what you get. Parkers turned up, which is also a well known name. And several Dutch companies, which I am sure are respectable. In my own case, I found my species Tulips in packets in a garden centre, where they were marked with their species name.

 

I grow tulips in pots and they usually come back the next year with no effort from me. I had noticed that the pots which only had tulips were more reliable than those which contained other plants too. Reading this thread, I'm guessing it may be because I water the pots with other plants whilst the tulips are dormant. Can't help with varieties as I've had some for years, sorry. I do tend to put all of one type together and go for those which aren't too tall as I like that impact. I get repeat flowers year after year from some yellow tulips which are only about 8" tall, similarly some red with a dark streak about the same height. Both flowers open almost into a star shape.

I have always believed that tulips are better if they're not too deep.