Springtime is tulip time, a dramatic chapter in gardners’ succession blooming cycles. With snow drops, hyacinth, and daffodils fading, colorful tulip blooms take center stage. And this year’s tulip time does not disappoint.
Signs of springtime are abundant lately. It’s asparagus time. Also ramps, apple blossoms, dandelions, fiddleheads, tulips, nettles,… And lily of the valley unfurling dramatically. An entire army of terpsichorean twirlers synchronized, slowly unfurling, mesmerizing. (Source: Lily of the Valley Unfurling )
With especial thanks to my bride Susan Bacot-Davis for her moody photos, I offer you three intimate portraits of our current tulip time. Like festive gala gowns these goblets of pigmented petals dazzle and dare us to imagine springtime maturing into sizzling summer soon…
So much confidence and coquetry in these precocious summertime previews. And yet these blooms are delicate, susceptible to swings in temperature and downpours.
The tulips make me want to paint,
Something about the way they drop
Their petals on the tabletop
And do not wilt so much as faint…
(Source: A.E. Stallings, “Tulips”, Poetry Foundation
Tulip time now, and iris time soon…
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