I was lucky enough to have one of my favorite people in the world as my boss, not once, but twice. One day every Fall, at the end of some long meeting about a weighty legal matter, Alison would say something like, “Now, for something really important,” plop her dogeared tulip bulb catalogs on the table and show me all of the varieties she planned to order.
In most of California, growing tulips is a labor of love. With no frost to set the bulbs in winter, most just rot in the too-warm, damp soil and have to be either dug up and refrigerated or replaced, one-by-one, each year. And labor Alison did, planting (herself) up to 1000 bulbs every year in her San Francisco garden. When the tulips were at their peak, she would throw a “Spring Fling” garden party to celebrate.
This week in chilly New York, I wanted to bring some of that Spring-Fling spirit into our apartment. Potted greenhouse tulips are now starting to appear in flower shops and even supermarkets. They’re beautiful, relatively long-lasting, and they cost just a few dollars each. Used alone, they can seem a little spindly, but in multiples I think they look luxurious and happy.
To hold my little garden, I found zinc-lined kiri wood boxes at Jamali Garden Supplies in New York, an excellent source for containers and supplies for displaying plants indoors. (For more about this, see my previous post here.) I just slipped the nursery pots into them and topped them with preserved moss.
I like the way the grey-brown wood sets off the soft light-green foliage of the tulips. I also like their simplicity. They’re casual, but not too rustic for the city –perfect, I think, for this natural treatment of the flowers. They’ll be nice too with pots of hyacinths, daffodils and, of course, more tulips.
Jamali Garden Supply is located at 129 West 28th Street in New York. These kiri wood pots are available there and online at www.jamaligarden for $9 each.
