The Spring Pot - Gavota and tangerine beauty tulips

Look at that tulip! What a colour combination, like mango and raspberries,
shame about the clashy colours but blame the manufacturers

There is a sad sight sat in front of the patio doors at the second.  The sad shadow of the former glory resplendent in colour and texture that was the spring pot.  The hinges on the tulip petals finally broke off last week and therefore all that is still going strong is the polyanthus.  The last time I featured the spring pot it was a picture of orange and purple, a mixture of tulips and grape hyacinths.  This stage was followed by a second bout of tulips.  Just as I got back off holiday a whole host of blood red tulips burst forth, hogging centre stage.  The colour clash was atrocious.  I don't know if the April heatwave brought these out extra early, but there was a colour scheme clash in there I clearly hadn't anticipated.  Luckily the orange moved on pretty swiftly and were replaced by a tulip of the most gorgeous colour mix.  Gavota triumph tulips are something else.   I know I chose it so of course I liked it, but boy, it was lovely.  It was elegant rather than traditionally pretty, a dark purpley brown, almost maroon if you will, offset with a zizzy yellow.  I enjoyed them immensly.

What a dreamy centre

I didn't like the bright red tulips that much, I found them slightly brash and unsubtle, and I wasn't keen on the red and blue combination with the grape hyacinths.  I know red and blue go together fine, but it was a bit military for my liking.

Tangerine beauty, only not tangerine.  Red-clash-with-everything-in-the-pot-beautty more like.  No point being colourful if its the wrong colour

Ok for this next bit to make sense you need to understand that this paragraph is a later addition.  I had this all written and then went back to a previous post to check the names of the tulips when I discovered why there was such a colour clash.  The red tulips weren't meant to be red, they were meant to be tangerine.  Orange by any other name.  Orange would have fitted in beautifully with all the other bulbs, red did not.  But I knew that and that is why I did not choose red ones.  This is a classic example of my favourite irritation: the innaccurate flower picture that lies to you on purchase and disappoints you later in life. Tulipa vvedenskyi Tangerine Beauty are red, not orangey red, not browney red. Red.  If I had wanted red tulips thats what I would have bought.

I feel this is the right point to reflect on the spring pot as a whole.  Would I have chosen anything different?  Well clearly the timings on the packets can not be trusted when a little sunshine is thrown in the mix, so nothing chosen to go in the pot should be able to present an obstacle to a continuing harmonious colour scheme.  Other than that, maybe it might have been nice if the colours were a little more pretty?  Is it wrong to want to see a bit of pink at that time of year?  I think not.  I would quite like to do a pot with a real feminine palette next year, maybe involving pastels?  It will be wild.  Join me again October-time for the great bulb pick for next year.  I will of course be doing stuff between then and now, but for now I need to get those bulbs out and make way for the sweet peas!  As they say on the trains, all change!