'Blue Diamond' Tulip Bulbs, Double Early

Tulipa Blue Diamond

The 'Blue Diamond' tulip is a proper gem. It looks like a bowl of seemingly endless petticoats of petals in a mid-blue-purple almost lilac hue. Towards the edge of each petal the blue-purple takes on a silvery shade which makes this tulip flash colour like a well-cut precious stone. When the flowers open up in the sun they can be up to 12 cm in diameter. The thing about Double Early tulips is that the flowers really do last for a long time from mid April to the end of May and they are supported on a strong stem with grey-green leaves. Unlike most of the other ornate tulips, Blue Diamond also has a slight fragrance resembling that of freesias. It looks wonderful interplanted with other tulips, so why not take a look at the rest of our range.

Setting your Blue Diamond

With flowers as large as this, it could definitely be described as slightly top-heavy so even if the stem is strong and relatively short, you are well advised to plant these tulips somewhere sheltered so that you get the benefit of all those amazingly long-lasting flowers. This peony style of tulip can hold its own in a herbaceous border surrounded by other perennials or shrubs - especially of the silver-leaved variety like Senecio cineraria. Its fragrance makes it a definite for planting in pots or window boxes where you can get the chance to enjoy its smell easily. And its lovely bluey and silvery hues make it hugely attractive in the house as cut flowers and for combining with other tulips. Some of the candidates would be early single tulips like the pure white Diana or Purple Prince which could then segue into the later flowering elegant lily tulips, White Triumphator or for more pzazz, try Ballerina.

Features Blue Diamond

• Height: 40 cm
• Colour: Blue-purple
• Flowering time: April/ May
• Size of flower: up to 12 cm
• Scent: slight freesia fragrance
• Group: Double Early
• Foliage: grey-green

The Blue Diamond tulip was first introduced in 1962. It is particularly unusual in having a fragrance because normally only yellow or orange tulips are so blessed. Less relevantly, diamonds are weighed in carats. The word carat stems from the Arab word Quirrat or the Greek keration for carob tree. The seeds of the carob tree are uniform in size and weight so they were used as the counterbalance to weigh traded diamonds; one seed being one carat.