On the Inside with Jacqueline Hériteau: The Tulip Library

Posted on Friday, January 01, 2010 by admin in Care
Tags: Flower, On the Inside with Jacqueline Heriteau, The Tulip Library, Wild Flowers

The landscaping season is just getting under way in and around the Capitol. A favorite spot of mine is the Tulip Library, a neat garden located between the Tidal basin and the Jefferson Memorial. There are about 100 small beds, each planted with one to two hundred varieties of tulips, most of them samples of the tulips that bloom around town. Early this month you may still be in time to see some of the lovely little species tulips that have been planted there this year for the first time at the recommendation of Rob DeFeo, chief horticulturist for the National Park Service. Species tulips come back in my garden, along with the tall tulips that the squirrels steal and bury in the pachysandra, but other tulips rarely bloom a second time for me. As I understand tulipology, after they bloom, the mother bulbs of the big beautiful Dutch tulips make bulblets instead of making flowers for next year’s blooming.