2001 Bulb of the Year
From America’s Expert Source for Heirloom Flower Bulbs
My Basket
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2001 Bulb of the Year
From America’s Expert Source for Heirloom Flower Bulbs | My Basket |
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| A Queen Forgotten: ‘Clara Butt’ Tulip Old House Gardens’ 2001 Heirloom Bulb of the Year |
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“With a name like ‘Clara Butt’, you have to be beautiful – and tough,” says Scott Kunst of Old House Gardens, “and this endangered, landmark tulip is both.”
Tall, elegant, and a lovely shell pink, ‘Clara’ reigned as the most popular tulip in early twentieth-century perennial borders – and the first “modern” tulip. Today, however, it’s highly endangered. You won’t find it in the Netherlands, where almost all of the world’s tulips are grown. Yet it does survive, grown in small quantities on one last family farm in the Pacific Northwest. To encourage home gardeners to help preserve this rare, 112-year-old beauty, Old House Gardens has named it their 2001 “Heirloom Bulb of the Year.” Old House Gardens, America’s heirloom bulb specialist, searches the world for antique bulbs that have disappeared from mainstream sources. Many they find right here in America, “which makes us a bit weird,” Kunst says. “Virtually every other bulb-seller in the country gets 99% of their bulbs from Dutch sources. But by working with American farmers we’re able to offer varieties you can’t get anywhere else. As a bonus, they’re often better adapted to tough American growing conditions, too.” Bulbs for Old House Gardens come from small farmers in Texas, California, Michigan, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Maine, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Florida. “These growers are the micro-brewers of the bulb world,” Kunst says. “And without them many of the greatest bulbs of all time would already be extinct” – including ‘Clara Butt’. ‘Clara’ was the first of the Darwins, an important class developed in the late 1800s from much older, out-of-fashion tulips that had been preserved by Dutch enthusiasts. While the most popular Victorian tulips had been short and bright, perfect for carpet-bedding, the growing turn-of-the-century vogue for perennial borders called for taller, later, pastel tulips – and ‘Clara’ fit the bill stunningly.  Fresh-picked bouquet of ‘Clara’ on our kitchen porch “But to save it, we need your help,” Kunst says. “The only way to preserve these living treasures is to grow them, and that’s something any gardener can do. Plant a half-dozen ‘Clara Butt’ tulips this fall and you’ll not only enrich your garden and touch the past, you’ll help save a truly irreplaceable inheritance.” [Unfortunately, the one last farmer growing ‘Clara’ gave it up in 2007. We are now nurturing a very small supply of it ourselves and hope to offer it again eventually. For an email alert when it becomes available, sign up for our email newsletter, The Friends of Old Bulbs Gazette.] Learn more about our Heirloom Bulbs of the Year here. |
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| For our print catalog click here or send $2.00 to Old House Gardens 536 Third St., Ann Arbor, MI 48103. phone: 734-995-1486 fax: 734-995-1687 charlie@oldhousegardens.com |  |
For our free email newsletter, “The Friends of Old Bulbs Gazette” with tips, news, history, & special offers, send us an email with “subscribe” in the subject line to newsletter@oldhousegardens.com. |
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