When I first moved to San Francisco I noticed as I walked past flower stands there were always beautiful and colorful flowers including tulips.
Bright and elegant, they soon became my favorite flower.
Filoli Historic House & Garden has 80,000 bulbs including tulips and daffodils. They have 38 varieties of tulips. It’s a brilliant sight as you stroll through the garden paths and see these beautiful flowers.
Because it’s a bulb flower, you often don’t know what color it will be until it actually blooms which leads me to an interesting story I learned while at Filoli … “the accidental tulip.”
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Filoli Historic House & Garden receives thousands of bulbs every year from the Netherlands to plant seasonally for their beautiful tulip garden. A few years ago, they received a shipment of bulbs that they thought were going to be one color and when they bloomed, they turned out to be beautiful pink tulips.
The staff at Filoli Historic House & Garden were surprised by the pink color and ended up loving these tulips so much that they decided to plant them every year. Tulips can be hearty with their stock or stem, which can allow them to survive in extreme conditions. They love water, and a fun fact is when you cut them and have them in a vase in your house. If you put pennies in the vase, it’ll help them stay hearty and they will continue to grow in the vase.
Tulips are typically planted in the fall and usually bloom in spring, although there are varieties that bloom later in the season. There are over 3,000 registered varieties of tulips with colors ranging from white, pink, red, orange, yellow, purple and black. They bend towards the light and will continue to grow after being cut. When caring for your tulips, trim stems at a 45-degree angle and place them in cool water with flower food. Change the water every two days. Keep your tulips away from direct sunlight.
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In addition to their aesthetic value, tulips have played an important role in history and culture. They were highly prized in the Ottoman Empire and introduced to Europe in the 16th century.
In the 17th, century tulips became so popular in the Netherlands that it caused the first economic bubble, referred to as “Tulipomania.”
Tulips continue to be popular all over the world to this day, and there’s nothing like wandering around Filoli Historic House & Garden and immersing yourself in bright cheerful flowers to help you escape from your routine even for just a day.
