When I first discovered my garden and my lifelong passion began, I had a busy career plus a daily two hour commute and despite spending every spare hour in the garden, my time in it was actually very limited, so I was very much focused on plants that required as little maintenance as possible. As a result I very rarely grew either annuals or tulips, both of which then seemed to require an awful lot of ‘faff’ for ‘just’ a single year of flowers.

Well that’s all changed! I now have an absolute obsession for both, maybe because they were a kind of forbidden fruit, or maybe because just my priorities have changed, but I now spend a small fortune on tulip bulbs and annual seeds every year.

I adore designing with tulips

The shapes they create are fabulous and no matter how hard I try, I always seem to be drawn to the dark side when photographing them!

These images from one of my masterclasses are by my lovely friend Holly Belle and Beau Fine Art Photography

Tulip La Belle Epoque

To see which tulips I’ve been growing in the garden this year, see my April garden notebook post. More to follow too in the upcoming May post.

I will, of course, be posting lots more tulip images on Instagram.