The New York Times | An ‘Utterly Bewitching Flower’ Gets Its Due

Words by Eve M. Kahn
March 10, 2024

A spread from “The Tulip Garden: Growing and Collecting Species, Rare and Annual Varieties.” The author planted tulips as a “spontaneous shortcut” to fill beds, then delved more deeply into the flowers.

A kaleidoscope of tulips blooms in spring on Polly Nicholson’s land in southwest England, the base for her organic cut flower business Bayntun Flowers. Her new book, “The Tulip Garden: Growing and Collecting Species, Rare and Annual Varieties” (Phaidon), shares how she mixes new and pedigreed types of what she calls an “utterly bewitching flower.”

Nearly 20 years ago, when her family moved to the property, she planted tulip bulbs as what she describes as a “spontaneous shortcut” to fill beds. Then she delved into the flowers’ back stories. Some had originated a millennium ago in the Middle East and Asia and are shown in old master paintings and Ottoman tiles. She also seeks out recent experiments, in shades of palest pink or deepest indigo. The book details all aspects of the plants, whether “mottled, undulating leaves,” or crinkled petals with “a freakish, feathery appearance.”

She fertilizes her soil with organic seaweed and sprinkles it with chili powder to fend off squirrels. She reassures readers that, “if a combination really jars you” — a bed’s colors, shapes, and textures seem cacophonous — it should be seen as “a temporary aberration,” destined to last just one spring. “And you may even come to love it,” she added. “Every garden needs a bit of bad taste.”

March 10, 2024 | The New York Times