Two summers ago, Joy of Canadian Garden Joy started a weekly meme for gardeners to highlight one plant from their beds each week. Joy needed to drop it after a bit, but I thought then, and still think, it’s a good idea. Therefore, I propose to bring it back. If anyone wants to join in, that would be great! Just leave a comment here with a link to your own post.
This week I highlight two tulips. The first is ‘Sunset Miami’. Even tightly budded the first week of May, this tulip showed colorful promise:
When it opened a few days later, it was easy to see how it came by its name. Just look at these gorgeous colors!
‘Sunset Miami’ opened around May 10 in my Zone 5a garden. It bloomed nicely for about ten days before fading and dropping its petals. Its height averaged nineteen inches, and its blossoms were of medium size, between two and three inches at their peak.
It’s a fringed tulip, featuring a delicate lacy edge:
‘Sunset Miami’s’ brilliant colors slowly fade as it ages:
Near the end of its bloom cycle, its color is reminiscent of driftwood on the beach:
As the sun set on ‘Sunset Miami’ (sorry, I just couldn’t resist!), Tulipa ‘Golden Artist’ came into its own:
‘Golden Artist’ is a green tulip, featuring streaks of pale green through its petals. It began blooming in mid-May here in northeastern Pennsylvania. As it opened, it blushed prettily pink:
This late-bloomer is a relatively short tulip, about fourteen inches, and its lily-shaped blossoms are large in proportion, about four inches tall.
‘Golden Artist’ has bloomed for nearly two weeks in my garden, and is at the end of its bloom cycle just now, on May 26. I suspect the mid-eighty degree temperatures we’re expecting over the next few days will be its complete undoing! Its bright golden yellow fades to a more buttery shade as it ages, but its decline is not as dramatic as ‘Sunset Miami’s’.
‘Golden Artist’ is a sport of ‘Artist’, described by Scheepers as a “suffuse spectrum of salmon-rose and purple with green markings.” I think a combination of the two would make a stunning late-season display!
Cosmos and Cleome 
They are so beautiful!!
I agree! Thanks for stopping by, Janaline!
I really do like the sunset tulip and will try to find that for my autumn planting this year. Inlive the idea of a Thursday feature and will join you next week Kimberley! 🙂 I haven’t been blogging much more than my weekly vases recently, so this should help me get back into the swing of things!
I find it helps me write if I have something more specific to write about!
I think I planted plain old ‘artist’ bulbs last fall and they just finished up blooming last week. I thought the blooms were just as cool as ‘golden artist’, but not quite as showy. If I ever get another blog post up I’ll show you!
I know I’m far too disorganized to follow a weekly meme, I’m going to try and aim for a random Thursday every month 🙂
Ahh, you do still exist! The end of the school year is just so busy, and you’re double whammied being a parent and a teacher! Just don’t know why you’re not blogging every day, LOL!
You can have the “Golden Artist” bulbs if you want them! I know I’m too disorganized to dig them up, dry them out, store them all summer, and then remember to re-plant them in the fall!
I’ll look forward whatever you post, whenever!
Thank you for overestimating my organizational skills 🙂
My digging and replanting usually amount to nothing more than accidentally digging up bulbs when planting something else and then replanting when I ‘discover’ the bulbs in some discarded pot on some out of the way garage shelf!
Beautiful. Sad, in a way, that the season is now over. Now we must wait until next spring.
And as so frequently happens, summer has dropped upon us like a ton of bricks! Hot, moist, sticky bricks!
Those tulips would be at home in the tropics!
Lovely tulips, the colours of Miami sunset are beautifully intense but I thought the fringing didn’t look as good as on most fringed varieties but definitely worth it for the colour.
Gorgeous tulips.