I guess it's been a couple days with no other responses.... Has your tulip changed further? Shirley seems to start out light cream with a fine edge but then goes to all mauve splatter as the blooms age. Is this maybe what happened?

I do have a white garden a section of the whole garden, if you don't count the coral Lycoris radiata in August nor the pink Crinum that I cannot kill nor the Spring and Fall crocus. It is unlike Vita's in that hers included many grey leaved plants to extend the effect. My leaves are an emphatically green background for the flowers, Taxus media, Vinca minor (white flowered), Nandina (white berried), Daphne odora marginata, Skimmia japonica (white berried), and the various leaves of flowering plants, roses, ('Katharina Ziemet', 'Blanc Double de Coubert', 'Sombreuil', 'Ilse Krohn Superior', 'White Pet', 'Mlle de Sombreuil', and 'White Maman Cochet' - 'Bolero' died but will be replaced in multiples), Helleborus niger, H.xhybridus and bulbs, Tulipa 'Purissima', Narcissus 'Thalia' and Colchicum autumnalis alba. The Gardenias, Citrus trees and Tabernaemontana grandiflora (an unfussy gardenia relative) reside in this patio garden in the summer so I guess that's more white. Cath

Thanks again for all the compliments. You all know that I just love, love, love my garden. Well, I could never design anyones elses garden as I am sure the way I do things here will not work for everyone. Plus each person has their own vision of what their garden should look like. I just figgured out what works here for me by trial and error. Vickie- I have to laugh at the comment about the lined up Portulacas. I do tend to plant things like little soldiers lined up in a row LOL! I planted all my daffs in those front mini terraces in rows like that. Thing is I am not looking for the results to look like rows, they grow out of it. But it is easier to set and space out plants. By the time the daffs bloomed there was no row look and I know by the time the Portulacas fill in and start to bloom it will just be a mass of flowers. You will not be able to tell if they were lined up or willy nilly.

Tulips come from the mountains of Turkey, where they get rain in Spring and drought the rest of the year. So the way to get them to come back is to plant them someplace that mimics that environment: moist in Spring and until they're done blooming/their foliage naturally dies back, then parched. That keeps the metabolic level of the bulb low enough that it doesn't get roused/burn resources until next Spring. How to do this? Plant your bulbs in unwatered hell-strips -- or put them in big pots that you can lift after bloom/foliage dieback and store dry in your basement or the like. I also find that the smaller species tulips do better than the traditional big ones do -- unless you go to Roozen's (or Merrifield) and get their giant bulbs -- those are twice the size, come in a limited range of colors (red or yellow only, I believe) and are guaranteed to bloom for more than one year. I planted Roozen's last year for the first time and they were HUGE and lovely -- I'll tell you how they do this next year. Also, the squirrels in my neighborhood go after disturbed soil; in my experience they tend to ignore bulbs planted the year before. I've tried a number of techniques to get the little buggers to leave this year's plantings alone -- red pepper sprinkled on the ground only trained them to dig up anyplace marked with pepper dust! -- but the one success came from soaking bulbs in Ro-Pel. I'd leave one soaked bulb above ground; the squirrels tasted that, went "Feh!" and left the others alone. The only bulbs that didn't work for were crocuses -- my squirrels so love crocus, they dug up the little wire-mesh cylinders I planted the bulbs in for protection and ran off with THOSE! Lynn