The great flowering of tulips begins in the VDU Botanical Garden in Kaunas

Although the weather is not warm, the big tulip bloom of Vytautas Magnus University (VDU) Botanic Garden is ready for a real explosion of colors: in the third week of April, Darwin’s hybrids began to spread en masse, Foster’s full-bodied tulips, Triumf’s and even such usually late ones as lilies, parrots or Coronet tulips. In total, this year VDU Botanical Garden in Kaunas exhibits about 450 varieties of tulips from all 16 groups in its collection, which visitors come from even the remotest corners of Lithuania to see and get acquainted with rare, interesting, unseen tulips.

Flowering time can even be determined by the origin of the bulb

Mr. Rita Maršelienė, curator of botanical collections, long-time tulip grower in the Botanic Garden.

“Yes, this week you can already see a few lily-flowered, parrot tulip varieties in bloom – usually those from the earlier groups, such as the Darwin hybrids. Varieties in the same group can differ greatly in the time of flowering: for example, some tulips of the Coronet group are already starting to bloom, while others are still completely green – they will have to wait another week for flowering.

Such nuances are very important to know for people who are planning flower beds that bloom at the same time, planting flower compositions in strips, in certain patterns,” says the specialist.

Even the country of origin of the variety affects the flowering time! Rita remembers how at one time bulbs of the variety ‘Spryng Break’ were received from England and from Holland. After they were planted, the English bulbs bloomed almost a couple of weeks earlier than the Dutch bulbs in the spring. It is believed that the way the tulip grew the previous year reflects the earlyness or lateness of the next year. By the way, after living in Lithuania for a year, these tulip bulbs became equal and began to bloom at the same time.

The collection is enriched with news

In the tulip exhibition of the VDU Botanical Garden, you can admire not only tulips, but also other spring plants: from daisies, irises to erythrons or garlic – the collection of the latter has also been replenished with new varieties this year. True, their flowers will have to wait.

“People come to us to see the largest variety of tulips in Lithuania – it’s an opportunity to see tulip varieties of all groups in one place, observe their blooming times, various combinations, finally, choose your favorites and maybe plant them in your flower gardens next year. Therefore, when looking for something new, interesting, and maybe even rarer, which we could make the visitor happy in the spring, we have to search a lot and turn our heads.

However, this year we will have at least a few new varieties that have never been exhibited in our garden or that have long since disappeared. It is true that most of them are not in bloom at the moment – we expect to see their flowers in the next couple of weeks: this is 1939. bred full-bodied late tulip ‘Uncle Tom’, frosted ‘Burgundy Lace’, ‘Lambada’, ‘Coldplay’, ‘Burning Flame’, lilies ‘Burgundy’, ‘Go Go Red’, Triumfo ‘Rimini’, ‘Anastasija Romanova’, ‘ Karate’ and ‘One Direction’, Darwin’s hybrid ‘Robbedoes'”, says R. Maršelienė about the news.

Visitors are invited to view the newly purchased varieties of tulips not only in the usual exhibition place – the Educational Garden, but also in the newly established White Flower Garden by the pond, in front of the conservatory: white blooming varieties of tulips have been planted there.

Animals also like tulips

The collection of tulips changes practically every year and it is not so easy to preserve some varieties: the decorativeness and resistance of tulips are affected by the weather conditions of that year, the temperature and the soil – for example, the Dutch who grow tulip bulbs on a mass scale even give recommendations on the type of soil, its acidity and what fertilizer is needed for each specific variety. However, as Rita herself says, if you are not growing varieties per hectare, but several bulbs, it is practically impossible to follow such recommendations.

In addition, tulips are attacked by diseases and various pests, from beetle larvae to mice.

It seems that tulips in the Botanical Garden are one of the tastiest snacks for various animals: after the roe deer were evicted from the garden, hares sometimes tried to eat them, but the mice caused the most damage, destroying some varieties of tulips. So this year, rodent control methods were used and it seems that it helped – there are no more empty spaces in the flower garden, stolen by mice.

“There are still crows left, but they are not interested in the tulips themselves, but in their tags – especially the small ones embedded in the soil: curious birds pull them out, carry them away and throw them away,” laughs the specialist who takes care of the tulips.

You can admire the blooming of tulips in the VDU Botanical Garden in Kaunas every day, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. (the box office is open until 6 p.m.).

For more high-resolution images of the blooms in the collection, visit this link:

https://we.tl/t-kgun02xD5N