Spotlight Magazines Spotlight Magazine Sinfin & Stenson Fields Oct 15 | Page 12

Spotlight Magazine Terrific Tulips If I could grow only one type of flower then it would have to be the tulip. Harbingers of warmer days, the choice available is mind-blowing. There are frilly parrot tulips bearing fringed petals, sturdy fat-flowered types and graceful plants with lily-like blooms. Water everything in but shelter the pot from heavy rain so it doesn’t become waterlogged and never water in frosty weather. I use water-retaining granules mixed in with the compost. These help to maintain soil moisture throughout the dormant season. They are also tremendously accommodating. You can plant them much later than daffodils and narcissi because they don’t need to start producing roots so early. In fact you can plant them from now until Christmas! Feed the daisies or anemones throughout their flowering season in the Autumn and the Spring and you should be rewarded with a beautiful display sometime in April or May. My mother uses them as annuals and rips them up after flowering but I can’t bear to do that so I plant them deeply and leave them in the