Anne Olivieri is a perfectionist. When you have 7,500 tulips to plant and are expecting some 4,500 visitors to come and see them over the early May Bank Holiday weekend, nothing can be left to chance.
Anne and her husband René host the annual Morton Hall Tulip Festival in the grounds of their Georgian home in Worcestershire. Sponsored by Bloms Bulbs, it is a fundraiser for the Royal Shakespeare Company and it has to be show-stopping.
You may also like:
- The perfect spring garden by John Massey
- How to grow tulips
- A wild garden in Devon
- Ron Lutsko's californian non-garden
- Arabella Lennox Boyd's bold garden with a contemporary twist
Anne orchestrates the immaculate colour scheme, with harmonious pastel shades of whites, pinks and purples in the South Garden and hotter, jazzier colours in the Kitchen Garden. “There’s a sunrise bed on the east wall with pinks and yellows, and more vibrant sunset shades of terracotta, red and yellow on the west wall,” she says. “The secret of getting each blend to gel is to drop in a Viridiflora such as T. ‘Spring Green’ or ‘Formosa’ to enliven the pastel scheme, and to let rip in the Kitchen Garden with a bold carnival of colour.”
Morton Hall: a brief guide
- What A garden of interconnecting spaces with formal areas, kitchen garden, woodland walk, Japanese stroll garden and meadow.
- Where Worcestershire.
- Size Eight acres (including three acres of meadowland).
- Soil Heavy clay.
- Climate Temperate. 250m above sea level with moderate rainfall.
- Hardiness zone USDA 8.
Work starts in summer when Anne and head gardener Oli Johnson select which tulips to plant. “Over the past six years the season has become noticeably earlier, so we now rely entirely on late cultivars, which cuts out 80 per cent of the tulips on the market,” explains Anne.
The secret of getting each blend to gel is to drop in a viridiflora to enliven the pastel scheme, and to let rip in the Kitchen Garden with a bold carnival of colour
Anne and René embarked on a major remodelling of the garden when they bought Morton Hall in 2007. With the help of expert garden designer Charles Chesshire, the garden was designed as a hybrid between the 18th-century concept of open landscape and the more elaborate Arts and Crafts style.
The result is a series of distinct areas, each leading harmoniously to the next. At the front of the property, the view is over meadowland, which is studded first with fritillaries and narcissi, then camassias at tulip time. “Paths are mown through the grass and we have planted an informal allée of Japanese cherry, Prunus ‘Fragrant Cloud’, with lovely white blossom that fades to pink.”
Anne plots everything out on paper, and places each bulb on the earth herself to ensure the flowing, naturalistic effect she favours
A monopteros (a circular sandstone colonnade) creates a focal point. From the meadow, a nut walk
leads to a tea house and semi-formal woodland gardens. In the charmingly atmospheric Japanese Stroll Garden, paths wind around a series of ponds with stepping stones and planted banks. In spring, the scene is illuminated by the fresh greens of emerging foliage, along with pulmonarias, camassias and early thalictrums. The cool, blue-and-white colour scheme here contrasts with the more formal tulip gardens.
The South Garden, where the pastel tulips take centre stage, is reached via a wisteria-covered pergola. Space to slot in the bulbs each year is always left between the permanent structural planting, such as clipped box, choisya, and pairs of ornamental silver pears, plus roses, peonies and herbaceous perennials.
Once the tulips have been lifted, they are replaced with annuals such as echiums, Nicotiana, cosmos and zinnias for colour and interest right through until October. In the Kitchen Garden, the ‘hot’ tulips are backed up by the emerging foliage of heucheras, geums and the early Iris ‘Maui Moonlight’ and, for summer colour, the bulbs are replaced with tender salvias.
Top tips for a tulip display
- Plan out your design on paper and take pains to plant in natural drifts rather than blocks.
- Add a Viridiflora, such as T. ‘Spring Green’ or T. ‘Formosa’, to add some zest to pastel schemes.
- Use a mix of different shapes, such as peony-flowered and multi-headed tulips for impact, and lily-flowered ones for elegance.
- Source big bulbs. Choose ones that are size 12 or bigger.
- Leave space for tulips in between your permanent planting of perennials, and replace the bulbs with hardy annuals in summer.
- Improve your soil’s drainage with regular applications of mulch. Bulbs hate heavy, waterlogged clay.
- Plant your bulbs as late as you can and take them out again after flowering, to help avoid fungal disease such as tulip fire.
- Protect tulips from squirrel attack by scattering chilli powder on the soil after planting. Reapply after rain.
12 key tulip varieties
Useful information
Address Morton Hall Lane, Redditch, Worcestershire B96 6SJ. Tel 01386 791820. Web mortonhallgardens.co.uk Open Tulip Festival takes place 3-5 May. Pre-booked tickets, £15. Gardens open for groups by appointment April – September, and for NGS on 23 August.