Tulip Time - A Gardening Simplified Preview

Rick Vuyst, host of Gardening Simplified joins us to discuss tulip time and why this is such a special part of the year. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And there is a good batch of them or flock
or whatever it's called, we should ask an expert. Wait
a minute, Rick Weist is here with gardening simplified. When
we talked tulip time, there's a gaggle, a mess of them.
What do you say if you have more than one
or two tulips?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
You would say, drift, Steve, get my drift.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
I do. And to that end, I was thinking about
this because we were in Chicago and it was over
the weekend, like ten degrees and we came around a
corner and there was this cool little alcove and a
family had planted a bunch of tulips, and it was
the whole garden, and I thought, well, what happens when
the tulips go away? Yet they're a bulb, right. I

(00:42):
know nothing about this thing, But we celebrate them this
time of year.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yes we do, and generally fall planted, Steve, and so
we enjoy them in spring. I posted this past week
some pictures I took of tulips here in West Michigan,
just beautiful. And I realized, based on the reaction from people,
that many people do not understand or realize that there
are so many different cultivars and hybrid tulips with registered

(01:12):
commercial names, and generally botanists will take tulips and put
them into groups, and there's about fifteen different groups, so
not all tulips are created the same. I guess, just
bear that in mind. There are single early tulips, there's
single late there's lily flowering tulips, fringed tulips, there are

(01:35):
parrot tulips. So many different fabulous cultivars that make tulips
so fascinating, so much loved, so interesting. There are Viri
de flora tulips which have these green streaks through the flowers.
And remember that's what created the whole tulip mania thing

(01:57):
in sixteen thirty seven when we have had the bubble
burst and people lost their investments, and is still held
up as an example an investing example today. So the
variety available is just unreal.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
So Rick I was talking to my mom yesterday and
we have a niece that's going to graduate from Hope College,
which their graduation is always this weekend, so it's going
to be beautiful over there. And I asked her, I said,
how do the tulips look? And she said it was
a bumper crop. She said, they are gorgeous right now.
And so to take in everything that you always talk about.
I mean this is kind of like the Super Bowl, right,

(02:35):
I mean you need to take in tulip time.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, yes it is. And you know, you're right, We've
had really great weather for things like tulips or fruit
trees or flowering trees, a slow wake up this spring.
We didn't have an extended period of ridiculously high temperatures
that we have some years, and so you know, it's

(03:00):
no different than you waking up in the morning. You
don't want someone walking into your bedroom banging pots and pans,
and I mean that would just that would be a jolt, right,
So a nice slow wake up.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
It's beautiful, spoken like a true grandfather of a three
four year old. I think we're talking.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Very true, Rick.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
I've got to ask because we talk about the mental
health benefits of gardening and beautiful plants, and I got
to assume tulips are just at the top there. They're
so stunning, and I think it's a big reason so
many people go out to the Lake Shore for this festival.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Absolutely, it's the start of a new season and so
psychologically mentally, you know, their beauty is unreal and unmistakable.
But you know it's it's a sign that a new
season has started and something that we certainly welcome here
in West Michigan. With such a tremendous history. I mean,

(03:57):
I think about my parents who ate tulip bulbs to
stay alive during World War two during the hunger winter,
and and you know, so it the bulbs have such
and I talked about tulip Mania, So they have such
a history. And then for them to mark or note
that spring has begun your soul right, just a wonderful

(04:21):
thing to experience.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Gardening Simplified tomorrow at nine Gardening Simplified on air dot com. Rickwiss,
thanks as always, Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Have a great weekend.