Flower of the Day – Tulip

My favourite flower has always been the tulip, any colour, any variety.  Tulips do not grow in Mexico, but I loved drawing them as a kid, and looking at photos and documentaries about them.  The Royal Botanical Gardens (in Burlington and Hamilton in Ontario, Canada), with 2,700 acres of nature sanctuaries, cultivated gardens and an arboretum, is recognized as a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO for its vital role in protecting and preserving environmentally sensitive areas in the region.  Although currently closed due to the pandemic, RBG regularly offers workshops and courses, as well as many exhibits featuring different plants, as they reach their seasonal peak.  One of their features has a tulip theme every spring, which was one of the new things I got to do when I first came to Canada, so I was thrilled to be surrounded by so many varieties in full bloom. 

In my garden, I just love how the different varieties of tulips start showing their colours, as the season progresses; the earliest are the red:

Not too long later, the yellow tulips show their bright shades:

Warm weather in March made the tulips bloom earlier than average this year, only to be covered with snow a month later:

Fortunately, the frosty calamity was short-lived, and the rest of the tulips resumed their flowering cycle:

The photo below is from yesterday, and features pink tulips, usually the last batch to bloom in my backyard:

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One of my daughters is in France for a year; she got a potted tulip bulb for her birthday last fall.  She kept the pot indoors until spring, and shared the photo below when it started to bud:

She challenged the family to a lottery to guess the colour of the flower.  What would you say?  Our guesses were red, pink, orange and yellow …

PURPLE? I would not have thought of that possibility, and yet, a month later, I got one myself, as shown in the photo at the top of this post!

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I am joining Cee’s Flower of the Day (FOTD) challenge for May 7, 2021.