At Descanso Gardens, Spring Begins With a Blaze of Tulips
Yes, the camellias are lovely--big as trees and dense as a forest, with blossoms the size of saucers.
And so are the lilacs. Their elegant fragrance beckons from a hundred yards away, huge clusters of their lavender flowers towering over the winding path.
But the stars, the real centerpiece, of Descanso Gardens’ annual spring show, which opens today, are the tulips.
Countless numbers of them--2,000 bulbs in one rather small bed alone. Every color you can imagine and some you can’t. Varieties you’ve seen for years and strains so unusual you would swear they came from another planet.
“Tulips aren’t supposed to grow here,” says George Lewis, superintendent of the gardens. But, under his guidance, they obviously do, and the tulips alone are worth a trip to La Canada Flintridge for this spectacular show.
Growing West Coast Tulips
Lewis willingly shares his tricks for perfect tulips, the first of which is to forget all methods used on the East Coast and to ignore most gardening books on the subject.
“In California, if you plant in the early fall (as gardeners do in most parts of the country), the ground is so warm that the stems take off before any roots develop,” Lewis says. “Then you get puny stems and a short flower cup.” Instead, he suggests, go ahead and buy your bulbs when the nurseries are full of them, in October.
Then refrigerate them for 42 days at 47 degrees Fahrenheit--Lewis is precise about this. This spell in the cooler allows the bulbs to “vernalize,” or go dormant.
Before you remove the bulbs from the refrigerator, prepare your bed by spading up the soil and incorporating a good bit of sand to improve drainage. “We don’t put any fertilizer in with the bulbs, because it burns them,” Lewis says, “but a handful of bone meal really helps.”
Then, when you’re ready to plant, hustle the bulbs into the cold ground. “One of the biggest mistakes home gardeners make is to let the bulbs lie around at room temperature for a couple of days before planting, so everything dries out,” Lewis says.
Plant Bulbs Deep
Another mistake, he says, is planting too shallow. “Our soil is so friable that you can stick your arm in down to the elbow,” he says, and that is about as deep as he advocates--about 8 to 12 inches.
Although you won’t see any progress for a while, the bulbs are busy underground, developing sturdy root systems. Water lightly during this time.
“When the spikes come out, begin watering regularly,” Lewis says. At Descanso, tulips are watered twice a day during their growth period and fed every two weeks with a liquid fertilizer that is high in nitrogen. “Nitrogen is the backbone of tulips,” Lewis says.
And when the gorgeous flowers finally quit blooming, don’t spend a lot of time worrying about trying to save the bulbs for next year--you won’t have much success in Southern California. “We don’t even bother digging them up at Descanso,” Lewis says. “Just count on replanting next year, and be glad if a couple of the old ones come back up too.”
Descanso Gardens’ show, which runs until April 9 and is open from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily, is unusual, Lewis says. “As far as I know, this is the only outside garden where you find daffodils, tulips, camellias, flowering fruit trees, lilacs and roses all blooming at the same time,” he says.
Bring Your Gardening Queries
The folks at the gardens willingly give you horticultural tips so that you can duplicate the plantings at home. For instance, you might try planting some old-fashioned roses and pruning them, as they do at Descanso, in an “arch and peg” umbrella shape, which forces them to bloom more profusely.
Or you might learn that camellias and azaleas thrive under the dappled shade of oak trees, the fallen leaves of which also provide perfect acidity in the soil.
You’ll definitely come away inspired to go home and get the knees of your gardening trousers dirty.
The gardens are located at 1418 Descanso Drive, La Canada Flintridge. Admission is $3 for adults; $1.50 for students with ID and seniors 62 and older; 75 cents for children 5-12, and free for those under 5.
Afternoon tea will be served on the hour between 1 and 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays during the show at the Hospitality House; reservations are required--call (818) 793-3337--and the cost is from $5.50 to $9.50 per person.
Puppet shows are on tap today at 10 and 11:30 a.m.; the shows will repeat next Saturday. Admission for the shows is $5 for adults and $4 for children younger than 12.
Demonstration gardens by professional landscape designers will be on view along the main lawn and stream. You also can see a variety of exhibits and purchase plants grown by the gardens’ propagation members.
