It sometimes seems that the weather is never right for gardeners (and farmers). When it is dry we want rain and when it is wet we want sun. The past few weeks have been a mix of both but the weekend winds wreaked havoc in the garden.

It was E A Bowles who wrote that May can be the cruellest month and the trouble is that the weather can change within minutes. Today we had warm sun that made the tulips open and then, in minutes, the sky blackened and we had wind, rain and hail. While tulip buds can withstand wind and rain the open flowers can’t.

What cruel weather has done to my tulips

So my 200 beautiful ‘Green Wave’ tulips have been in the wars. It looks as though someone has walked along them and snapped off 80% of the heads and tossed them on the ground.

‘Green Wave’ is probably my favourite tulip. It is a parrot mutant of ‘Groenland’ a pink Viridiflora that is one of the latest and possibly the longest flowering of all tulips. The flowers are madly frilled with petals curling in all directions and a wonderful confection of bluish green, apple green and pink. Every flower is different and as they age their character changes too. I totally understand if you don’t like it but I think it is amazingly beautiful and it is a superb cut flower.

Tulip green wave, tulip greenwave, tulip groenland