Tulips

Tulips are the heart of this collection, and the reason I count down to fall every year. I have chosen far more than the usual. There are lush doubles that open as full and ruffled as garden roses, parrots with their feathered, painterly petals, and elegant fringed and lily forms, all in a palette I cannot stop returning to: warm apricot and caramel, soft blush, deep wine, and a red so dark it is nearly black. Many are the old, broken, and specialty varieties you will never find at a garden center. They shift color as they open, changing by the day, and they are every bit as beautiful in a vase as in the border. Plant them this fall, and they will be the first thing that makes you catch your breath come spring.