Hever Castle Tulips Emerging for National Gardening Week

April 17 2015 | Garden What's on

As we celebrate National Gardening Week, the first of 7000 stunning tulips are bursting into life across the Hever Castle gardens. With their elegance and depth of colour, tulips are a firm favourite of English gardeners and provide a truly beautiful display.

Often used to create formal, orderly displays, tulips can also add vibrancy to more eclectic garden beds. You can find both of these planting styles at Hever Castle, with the beds along the Pompeiian Wall of the Italian Garden showcasing formal tulip planting. If you walk toward the Pergola Walk there are more informal displays, which will begin sprouting within weeks. The latter is added to every year with the bulbs that are dug up from the formal tulip beds.

You can see the early tulips during National Gardening Week near the castle, and on the Pompeiian Wall side of the Italian Garden.

Head Gardener’s Tips for Top Tulips:

• Always plant in late autumn and plant at least a depth of two/three times the height of the bulb.
• Plant in full sun.
• Tulips love fertile well drained soil, sheltered from strong winds and dislike wet conditions.
• Most bedding tulips are best replaced each year as left in the ground they are unlikely to flower after their first year.
• However, the alternative to discarding old bulbs with new is to lift and dry the bulbs after flowering. Allow the bulbs to dry thoroughly before storing and store in trays in a dark ventilated place at 18-20 degrees Celsius, replanting in the autumn.

Read more of our Head Gardener’s National Gardening Week tips and find out about our gardening team’s favourite places in the Hever Castle gardens.