Backgrounds and Environments 
Many a Tulip flowers to blush unseen because it lacks 
a background or a suitable environment. Shrubbery or 
walls may form the background or it may be merely 
adjacent foliage. From the vast range of spring flowering 
shrubs, one cannot make a mistake in selecting these for 
backgrounds. Visualize a shoal of pink “Smiling Queen,” 
“Rosabella” or “Princess Mary,” under the lee of a 
massed planting of the beautiful lilac, “Miss Wilmott”; 
or “Mrs. John T. Scheepers” or “Mother’s Day,” lying 
like a patch of the starry heavens under the purple pend- 
ants of a Wistaria, or the cherry-rose of “King George 
V,” near the pure white flowers of Spirea. The spread of 
Peony-leafage or the feathery spikes of Dicentra or the 
broad leaves of Anchusa, these may create a contrasting 
environment for Darwin and Breeder Tulips. Or it may 
be that the flowers of herbaceous plants that bloom si- 
multaneously with the Tulip, will help create the neces- 
sary harmonious or contrasting environment—the great 
variations of Tall Bearded Irises, the low blue of Spring 
Veronica and the scorching orange of Siberian Wall- 
flower. Visualize the bronze-violet of “Louis XIV,” the 
apricot-pink of “Marjorie Bowen” and the white of 
“Glacier” with the blue flowers of Phlox divaricata. Or 
this same Tulip combination with Mertensia virginica. 
But not alone is the background and environment made 
on an upper plane; much depends on what lies below the 
Tulips—the ground cover and the low plants blooming 
immediately thereabouts. From the simplest contrasts to 
the subtlest combinations the selection can be made. 
With blue Aubretia, for example, the contrasting orange 
of “Orange Ophelia” and the lemon of “Arethusa,” with 
white Arabis or Iberis, scarlet and crimson Tulips—the 
cherry-rose of “Princess Mary”; with Violets or Myo- 
sotis, the yellow of ‘Wall Street,” or the chestnutty 
“Dillenburg,” or “Conde Nast,” or the orange-yellow 
of “Jeanne Désor” or even the pointed spires of Lily 
Tulip, Alaska. 
Color Harmonies 
Like the animals that walked into the ark two by two 
“after their kind,” so must Tulips be combined “after 
their kind” if we are to succeed with them as picture 
material. Varieties of delicate coloring and structure 
should be kept apart from those of brilliant, insistent 
coloring and robust structure. 
Dark colored varieties are used for the main bold 
rear or front color effect. Interplant these with contrast- 
ing colors or different tones of the main planting. It is 
well nigh axiomatic that background colors should be 
strikingly darker or lighter than the foreground colors. 
Thus “Black Parrot” and “The Bishop,” or “Louis XIV” 
and “Queen of the Night” can be used for a mass of dark 
tones; “Michaelangelo” “Zwanenburg” or “Mrs. John T. 
Scheepers,” or light bronze varieties will afford contrasts. 
Another contrasting combination would be the purple 
ENTIRE CONTENTS COPYRIGHT 1955, BY JOHN SCHEEPERS, INC. 
Tulip Color Box 
All tulips we list are grown at our Holland Farms. 
Gre 
V 
maroon of “Barcarolle” and the ivory-yellow of “Ni- 
phetos.” Or the black maroon “Queen of the Night” with 
soft pinks such as “Rosabella” and “Mr. Van Zyl.” Or the 
apricot-colored “Reve D’Or” and “Jeroen Bosch’ with 
purples and crimsons. 
When Tulips are used in the perennial border, there 
should be no sharp dividing line between the colors. 
They should be planted in irregular shoals or drifts that 
run one into the other, so that as an observer walks along 
the border the color aspect is constantly changing. On 
the other hand, continuity should be maintained by plant- 
ing a few bulbs of the same tones all through the border 
so that they connect the various drifts. 
“Duke of Wellington” and the silvery pink of “Smiling 
Queen” close by a shoal of pink “Michaelangelo” and 
the rose-pink of “Rosabella,” then some of the “Marjorie 
Bowen” and the “Michaelangelo” can be extended beyond 
the shoals to connect them, This echoing from shoal to 
shoal and bed to bed is merely the application of the prin- 
ciple of repetition that is found in all good art. 
Colors of Far and Near 
Blue is the color of distance and its affinities lend a 
far air of expanse to a garden. The blue of the sky and 
the white of clouds give the same effect of distance to the 
eye. If the garden is small, it can be lent a distance by 
planting these in blended masses—the lilacs of “Madame 
Butterfly” and “Blue Gem”; the purples of “Scotch 
Lassie” and “The Bishop,” and the Salmon-Orange of 
“Limnos.” If the garden is to be given a close and in- 
timate air, then use the colors that advance—the reds, 
oranges and yellows such as “Eclipse,” “Reve D’Or” 
“Limnos,” “Alwina,” and “Conde Nast.” 
Balance and Focal Colors 
The strong tones—the reds, oranges and yellows—are 
more penetrating than the blues, purples and mauves, and 
consequently should be used as focal colors to attract the 
eye where color accent is desired. From these color 
heights the tones can be scaled down on each side in 
adjacent shoals. 
Remember also to give at least the semblance of bal- 
ance in your color plantings lest the border appear rest- 
less. Thus the dark, rich red of “Eclipse” and the car- 
dinal red of “City of Haarlem” might be combined for 
a focal mass, with descending balanced shoals on each 
side of “Princess Mary,” a rosy red, blended down to 
meet a shoal of the rose, orange and salmon of “Dido” 
or “Orange Ophelia.” 
_ But for all these subtleties, there are some Tulips that 
In our opinion can stand alone without any supporting 
tints save from the immediate greenery of other plants. 
The superb purple of “Bacchus,” the ardor of “Reve 
D’Or,” the maidenly blushing of “Rosabella,” the regal 
hauteur of “Niphetos”’—such Tulips may pass unac- 
companied. 
