Today I attended my first RHS Council Meeting. In diligent preparation, I read whole wedges of paper about importantly important things. Some of them are stamped Confidential in large red letters. Being in the Cabinet must be a little like this, except without the sexy red leather boxes and the official Jaguars. I was rather looking forward to the experience in a slightly scared, top diving board sort of a way and it did not disappoint. There were biscuits (of good quality although mostly plain and without chocolate) and superior sandwiches/fruit for lunch. I will add the provision of proper chocolate biscuits to my list of campaigns:along with my selfless drive to improve the fudge selection at Wisley.
Apart from that: it is September, my clients have returned from holiday and the incipient panic that I foresaw in my previous post (which is here for those of with short memories or who are new arrivals at this blog) is erupting into life. Joy all round.
Currently I am searching for a tulip: the never ending and ultimately fruitless search for the perfect tulip. Every year I buff up my shining armour, buckle on my trusty cuirass and venture off into the various catalogues and low dives frequented by bulbs. I like to find something new otherwise one becomes complacent and dull by falling into the same tried and trusted combinations. There are always a few without which I cannot live happily (most notably the incomparable White Triumphator and the knee trembling Ballerina: both lily flowered and divine). Apart from them I try and discover a new one that gets drizzled into the general mix of things. In recent years I have gone through (among others) Jan Reuss (which, interestingly, fades to the colour of an emerging Queen of the Night), Negrita, Orange Princess, West Point (very briefly in a fit of madness as a yellow tulip is a pointless thing), Tennessee, Flaming Spring Green and Dolls Minuet.
There are certain rules that should be observed, I think, when considering tulips (forgive me is this is getting a bit horticultural but I am certain that I will return to general nonsense about biscuits or prehensile strippers at some point very soon). Firstly, I think the simpler shapes are the most effective (although I am quite drawn to Antraceit and Black Hero which are slightly ruffled like mildly flustered turkeys). Secondly, they should , in most cases, be brightly coloured. Thirdly, that there should be lots of them: they do not enjoy moderation. And, finally, that most parrot tulips (in particular the ones which look as if they have advanced skin diseases) should be confined to pots. Ideally pots situated quite a long way away from me. Like Afghanistan.
Another part of me likes to choose things purely because they have interesting names which is not, I know, a very scientific way of going about things. Sometimes it is tempting to get them and then make the situation fit the bulb rather than the other way around. I am being courted by Cardinal Mindszenty who I imagine is a children’s entertainer with spotted trousers and an ecclesiastical bent. Chanson d’Amour because I have unexplainable soft spot for Manhattan Transfer (i). The species tulips have the very best names, however, who could resist batalinii Honky Tonk, vvedenskyi Latvian Gold (its got a double ‘v’ for goodness sake: how marvellous is that?) or platystigma,sogdiana and kolpakowskiana.
I am currently keen on Tulip Malaika, not purely for the similarity in name to Balalaika and Troika and Malfeasance.
That has been agitating me for a day or so among other things. The whimsical end of plant Taxonomy. That is about it really, my wife and daughter are in Cyprus so I am rattling around slightly going to bed too late and working for too long. I am also being plagued by telephone sales people. Now, I have a lot of sympathy for such people having done the job myself for quite a while when young, feckless and not yet a pillar of the community. I sold advertising space by cold calling the yellow pages off and on for a couple of years (until I got chucked out for grabbing the boss by his tie and trying to swing him round the room): amongst the publications who benefitted from my silver tongue were the Diary of the Association of Monumental Masons and the St John’s Ambulance (Bedfordshire) Yearbook. My point however, is that I rather resent being greeted warmly and asked how I am by telephone salesmen. They don’t care one jot how I am and should not pretend otherwise, I don’t particularly want to tell them:. On the principle that attack is sometimes the best form of defence I have just told a solar panel seller that I was not at all well with major problems with both my liver and bowels. I also informed him that I had a nasty rash on one leg and that a fox ate both my hamsters. Seemed to stop him in his tracks for a bit.
The picture is of Tulip Abu Hassan. I am listening to Cold Irons Bound by Tom Verlaine and the Million Dollar Bashers.
On the off chance that any of you were a bit bored, here are some old posts.
In September 2010 I was at Highgrove with various eminences.
In September 2009 the second episode of Three Men Went To Mow appeared and I upset part of the Dutch Nation.
In September 2008 I took a cherry tomato to London where a sad story followed.
In September 2007 I was recently returned from St Tropez and troubled by Geography
In September 2006 I was getting wet and tussling with ballcocks
(i) I am not going to try and explain the unexplainable but, in mitigation, any group that can sing the lines “Ooo wah, ooo wah, cool, cool kitty. Tell us ’bout the boy from New York City” without giggling has to be worth our respect.
The mere mention of Manhattan Transfer and I’m transported back in time: Ra Da Da Da Da or was it Ra Ta Ta Ta? Around about the same time I was v keen on Barbados by Typically Tropical (Coconut Airways, I think they flew) and Ray Steven’s The Streak (‘but it was too late. She’d already been mooned’).
One could have such good fun naming tulips
You can have too much euphoric recall ad I think that The Streak is a step too far.
Oddly, Coconut Airways was quite a good snogging song.
Gosh I do love tulips and getting ones with good colour is really hard. I confess to a soft spot though for good yellow tulips, not wishy washy ones – and Tulipa Sylvestris is one I have planted around in the grass quite a bit in the wildish/unkempt bit of the garden.
Buying plants with good names though is a must – one of my favourites is Hemerocallis ‘Little Bugger’ – hard to resist something with such a great name!
I am afraid that I generally abhor the yellow tulip as by that time I am yellowed out after a diet of daffodil.
First time I’ve commenetd on your blog although I love reading it.
Ballerina: my favourite tulip! Last year I was impressed by Cairo.
I love telling the sellers of solar panels that I have a thatched roof. They put the phone down PDQ.
How kind of you, thank you.
I hope that, having commented, you will again.
The thatched roof ploy, of course.
Cairo, I did not know but have now Googled. It is rather a fine sorbet orange.
I quite like T. ‘Purissima’ too, but made the elementary design error of partnering it with T. ‘Queen of Night’ without checking their flowering times. The whole point of light and shade was lost.
I’ve bought T. ‘Abu Hassan’ purely on the strength of your previous photos 🙂
Well I hope that Mr Hassan does not disappoint.
Is this the place for my ‘chewed lips from hamster jam’ joke? Thought not. Ray Stevens…I remember him well..looked abit like a Richard Dreyfuss that had been left out in the rain. ‘Boogedy boogedy’ as I believe he sang mid-song.
It is NEVER the right time for that joke.
Nor the chocolate finger.
This last spring, I watched my tulips emerge, grow tall, and then before they opened, I left them for clam chowder and skiing in California. When I returned three sunny April weeks later, eagerly anticipating the lush colour, I was shocked to see they had all been snipped off. Evenly snipped. I thought, ‘Fastidious deer? Annoying neighbour girls?’ I was frothing at the mouth and venting to the folks who’d fed our fish. Turns out they snipped them all for personal bouquets. Any normal person might think that was okay and generous of spirit, but tulipmania still exists in my corner of the world.
In this life you need to make choices and one of the most basic is between Tulips and chowder in California.
Some might say that you made the wrong decision but they would probably be wrong.
The tulips will come again.
I find a kind-ish way to stop telesales people in their tracks is to tell them you are a tenant. If they persist and you are feeling a bit tetchy – why do they always choose a time when you have just put dinner onto the table – you can invent something terrible about the so-called landlord. It has just occurred to me that I could say I was a squatter …
My wife often pretends to be the house sitter and says that we have gone away for an ‘extended stay” in a tone of voice that insinuates that we might possibly be in Parkhurst.
I’ve taken to asking phone-sellers why they want to know how I am and telling Microsoft Windows people they are certainly not. (Phoning from Microsoft.)
Tulips – for most of my life I’ve disliked them thoroughly. Three years ago I softened. Two years ago I grew ones with huge, brash, yellow flowers and thought they were wonderful. They came up again last year and I decided they were so far over the top they are disgusting. They must have heard me for they hung their heavy heads.
Esther
P.S. Just as I finished writing this, the phone went and a voice at the other end said ‘Am I speaking to Mrs Montgomery?’. I said ‘Yes’ and he hung up. Maybe my curt reputation is getting around and he lost his nerve?
Another thing I have been getting recently are overfamiliar machines with metallic voices giving me sales spiel.
They could at least use a real person: Indians in call centres need to eat.
I’m most disappointed. I had visions of you arriving at the meeting with a briefcase handcuffed to your wrist and Cleve driving you in the jag wearing a very dapper cap.
And yes, lily-flowered are by far the most beautiful tulips. I’m quite partial to Maytime. A very sexy colour although it does look as though it has been on a rather severe diet, so tiny is its waist.
I get a chauffeur next year. I am auditioning soon. The uniform might put off all but the most nubile.
But probably not Cleve.
I grew White Triumphator last year and thought it was a bit blobby. I do like to grow plants that remind me of people – I now have a very fulsome Matthew Wilson ‘caryopteris’, the Cleve West lupins did well this year and I now have a sanguisorba that reminds me of you. Sadly the Chris Beardshaw ‘hebe’ has been particularly dull this year and may have to be hoiked out.
White Triumphator is not even slightly blobby. It is as wispy and gorgeous as Cleve West in a frock.
I can’t suggest any great tulips you haven’t already tried. Jan Reus did it for me last year, paired with Carnaval de Nice (not the same red I know, but close enough) Dolls Minuet did it for my visitors. Pert and very bright.
More to the point, you have me fretting that I have not yet ordered a single tulip. Or done anything else useful in September. I can’t get myself in the zone for future planning. Just bang a few hundred extra on your orders for me, there’s a good chap.
Not sure about Carnaval de Nice.
I have done a number of useful things in September after a completely unproductive August.
Still haven’t ordered any Tulips, though.
I adore all tulips – even the parroty ones. However, my expensive tulip purchases are destined to become mouse banquets every year. This year my special bulbs are all going into large pots topped with wire mesh, and in the garden will be planted a cacophonous chorus of 20 £1 bags of mixed tulips from pound shops and market stalls. It will be interesting to see if the mice are as fond of the cheaper value meals. I am mentally preparing for a genteel shudder at the mixture of colours throughout my borders, but my husband and son think it will be a huge improvement!
The mice never eat the Queen of the Night, very strange….
It is probably because Queen of the Night is the only tulip that does not taste of cheese.
Have just realized that namers of tulip cultivars are closely related to, if not identical with, namers of nail polish colours. Perhaps both jobs are seasonal and flocks of workers migrate between the two, stopping off here and there to name a few paint colours.
I have always fantasised about a tall ceilinged room, full length windows framing a spectacular view, slick lighting and lots of crisp young women moving silently around doing important things.
In the middle of this room is a large glass desk with, in its centre, an exquisitely bound leather notebook. At that desk I would sit, wearing an immaculate suit, inventing the names of paint colours and writing them in this book in perfect copperplate. ‘Galway Baker’, ‘Persimmon’, ‘Elk Throat’, ‘Vichyssoise Canter’, ‘Silent Alabaster’ for a start.
THis fantasy of yours is so detailed it must be true. Sorry to bring down the tone as usual but as we were talking about paint colours… Years ago I went to the Doctors with a horrible cold and bad chest and said I was coughing up phlegm. “What colour is it?” he asked. Thinking he wanted to know the exact Pantone guide colour I thought about it and said “Autumn mist”…. Doctors can be very rude sometimes – I was only trying to be helpful.