Tulipomania

The tulips are out (finally!)

One of my favourite blog writers is based in London and if you check out her tulip pictures (really rather delicious) you will see that her tulips are ready for the bin (check out the May 1st blogpost!) while here in the wilds of the Scotttish Borders they are only now showing their full glory and they look even better in the sunshine today.

Us (ex) Dutchies are and always were mad about this flower which was introduced to Western Europe (again from Turkey) in the middle 16th Century.

People started to speculate using tulip bulbs as collateral (referred to as tulipomania) and you can of course imagine the rest. In 1637 there was what we would now undoubtely refer to as the "tulip crunch", which (yes, you've guessed it!) ruined many people overnight. Still at least they still had the tulips to look forward to in the next year so all was not totally lost!

The tulip above made me think of the following quotation:

"When a young man presents a tulip to

his mistress he gives her to understand,

by the general colour of the flower,

that he is on fire with her beauty, and by

the black base of it his heart is

burnt to a coal"

Sir John Chardin, Travels in Persia, 1686

Fortunately you don't have to be a millionaire nowadays to be able to buy some tulip bulbs in the autumn to provide your garden with gorgeous colour next Spring and here are a few examples which I'm particularly happy with at the moment!