114 Tulip Bulbs - Hosta Companions Around Large Red Oak Tree In Back - September 2020

 Yesterday, I posted how I planted 57 new tulip bulbs (yellow, orange and white ones) in our front yard bed outside of our front porch.  The yellow was added to balance the color, the orange was planted to bring the count of orange ones up to par and I added a little white - just because.  Today, I'm sharing the rest of the tulip bulbs that I picked up for the backyard.  I decided to go with a purple and yellow (and a little white) color combination for the backyard.  In doing a little bit of digging around, I've found that tulips and hostas are good companion plants.  I've (mostly) planted my hostas in shaded areas - shaded by decidious trees that gain their leaves in Spring - and the tulips will come out early and the hostas, when they emerge, will hide the declining foliage of the tulips.  

In late June, I dug up, divided and transplanted about a dozen variegated hostas in and around the large 31" Red Oak tree in our backyard.  

First is 30 Queen of Night Single Late (dark purple) tulips.  They're really dark purple - almost black. You can see the pair of packages of 15 bulbs below.  DutchGrown.com calls the Queen of Night "a tulip hybrid that every collector should have at one point."

I also added 28 Negrita purple tulip bulbs to complement the dark purple.   This is the 'best selling purple Tulip' on Tulips.com.  

And, just like in the front, I put in 14 of these Purissima White bulbs.  

And, similarly to the front, I used the Yokohama Yellow tulip here in the back.  42 of these to balance all the purple. 

That's 58 purple, 56 non-purple (42 yellow, 14 white).  

I planted all of these in the bed and then covered them with some wood chips to help insulate them.  The photo below shows the spread of the location.  From around the front of the tree all the way to the north in front of the newly planted All Gold Japanese grasses. 

Taking the 57 bulbs that I planted in front and the 114 planted back here, that's 171 total tulip bulbs dug in this September.   The most - by far - of any season.

• 2017: 30 tulip bulbs planted.  And 10 allium bulbs planted.  40 total.
• 2018:  50 tulip bulbs planted.  And 5 allium bulbs planted.  55 total.
• 2019:  30 gladiolas (corms.  Technically not bulbs) planted.  30 total.
• 2020:  171 tulip bulbs planted.  57 in front and 114 in backyard.