To the Tulips, with teeth! (The Tulip Tattoo).

May! Glorious month, the garden is all dressed for a wedding, the grass is strewn with papery petal fall...and the wind bites and I perpetually wish I had a coat.

I had the pleasure of visiting Pashley Manor this week, the annual Tulip Festival is in full swing. What a pageant it is. I am not sure that I "like" order, military rows, tulips on the parade ground but there's no denying it is a spectacle. As I look at the perfectly spaced planting and the harmonised colours I am strangely reminded of a military Tattoo. I fancy I can hear the cymbals clash as the band marches in perfect unison.
Let's begin in the Bloms marquee. Trestles set with glass vases filled with specimen tulips, arranged by colour.


I like tulips with teeth! spiked edges, articulated cabbagey petals, parrots in other words!




But not exclusively, I have a real crush on this ravishing tulip, dusky terracotta with hints of pinky lilac, as seen in the Long Toms at Perch Hill.La Belle Epoque.
Outside in the garden I am drawn less by the amazing massed beds and more to the urns, I like the idea that a garden urn is a giant vase of flowers.

 

Love this greenhouse! Bit more than a greenhouse in truth...a passionflower is clinging to a lattice of canes and there are lovely sculptures nestled betwixt scented geraniums and other tender specimen.
 

The house is devastatingly handsome, all timber framed Medieval to the front and Georgian symmetry to the back, dripping in jewels, wisteria drops and clematis stars.




There is a Corps de Ballet analogy to be made too...and if I was ever in doubt enter the black swan stage left...

 Note to self: When visiting Tulip Tattoo/Ballet always wear another layer...the wind has teeth!

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PS. I rather fell in love with this wonderfully stoic lady taking tea in the arctic breeze and thought how brilliantly English! When I said hello I was reminded how foolish it is to assume, she was Dutch! Of course she was, we were in a tulip garden.