Tulips

Video: Darwin Hybrid Tulips from Johnny's Selected Seeds

A closer look at Johnny's Darwin Hybrid Tulips

I'm here in front of our Darwin hybrid tulips.

This is a class of tulips that is known for their earliness to bloom and also their large flower size. The Darwin hybrids are a cross between Triumph tulips and Emperor tulips. From the Emperor tulips they get their large bloom size and their earliness to flower, and from the Triumph tulips they get their classic tulip shape.

So this is a class of tulips that is known for reliability, for their sturdiness and quality of their stems. They typically have these large, really glowing blooms, and there is some uniformity to bloom within the Darwins as well. They're kind of like the workhorse of tulips in a lot of ways. What we like about them, again, the earliness to flower in our trials. They tend to perennialize well, so Darwin hybrids are a good choice if you're looking for something to go into a garden or a landscape planting that's likely to bloom in multiple years.

There are a couple of special variety-types that I wanted to point out.

  1. This one is 'Akebono'. This is a double-flowering Darwin hybrid, which is a little bit unusual: a really beautiful kind of glowing yellow with a little bit of red and green also on the blooms.
  2. Then this set right here are the Impression Series. This is a series within the Darwin hybrids that is known for, again, the strong stems; they're known for their earliness to flower; they typically have a little bit of blush on the petal edges, as the buds mature and open up; and they're also known for the really classic, egg-shaped bloom form. This is a series that has always been a really strong performer in our trials.