When we first moved to Blacklands in Wiltshire in the late summer of 2008 I was faced with the daunting challenge of filling a series of yawning herbaceous beds. It was too soon in our custodianship to start creating permanent planting plans, so my quick-fix solution was to wait until November then pack them with tulip bulbs. Over the winter my attention was elsewhere, but come spring I was surprised and delighted to be greeted by an explosion of blooms of multitudinous colours and forms, stretching like a river across the garden. Having recently completed a horticultural diploma at the Chelsea Physic Garden, I assumed that the impressive display was down to my newly acquired gardening skills. It was, of course, entirely due to the artificially pumped-up annual tulip bulbs that are produced to be foolproof one-season wonders, aided by the deliciously black, alluvial soil after which our estate is named.
Over the next few years I established my organic cut-flower business, Bayntun Flowers, and trialled plenty of the annual tulips available on the market. We engaged the designer Arne Maynard to help us build on the preexisting bones of the garden (the River Marden, a majestic cedar of Lebanon, ancient yew hedges) and link it to the landscape beyond. Inspired by the historic tulips that Arne grew at his home in Monmouthsire (WoI May 2015), I bought a batch of Tulipa ‘Dom Pedro’, a single late variety of mahogany brown, shaded bronze at the edges with a cadmium-yellow base plate. This rare 1911 cultivar was unlike any other tulip I had grown, with a patina comparable to an item of antique furniture that had been lovingly polished by successive generations of owners. A trip to Hortus Bulborum, a living museum of endangered tulips north of Amsterdam, fuelled my passion and an obsession was born. I determined to form my own collection of rare and unusual tulips, a protection league for endangered varieties that might otherwise become extinct.
I currently have more than 75 historic tulips, dating from 1595 up to 2008. The oldest (and earliest to flower) is the diminutive Tulipa ‘Duc van Tol Red and Yellow’ (1595), a mere 20cm high with pointed, ultra-glossy crimson petals edged in a band of bright yellow; it must be closely related to the needle-petalled lale of Ottoman Turkey that can be seen in ancient Iznik tile-work. At the other end of the date range, T. ‘Inner Wheel’ (2008) is a modern Rembrandt-type ‘broken’ (or rectified) cultivar with flames of deep raspberry and pale lilac licking around a large, ivory flower head. Standing tall at a strapping 60cm, it is evidence that today’s tulip is bred to be bigger and brasher than its ancestors from more than 400 years earlier.
As a means of formalising my growing passion and protecting these rare breeds, I applied for the collection to be registered with Plant Heritage, the conservation and research charity. In 2021 I was awarded status as the holder of the National Collection of Tulipa (historic), a huge honour and responsibility too, as I must record all purchases and catalogue the bulbs when I lift them in July each year. Every one has to be carefully harvested a few weeks after flowering is over, dried out undercover in racks, cleaned and then replanted in fresh beds in mid-November. It is a labour of love, all carried out by hand according to strict Soil Association standards.
Husbandry is central to our operations. The ‘broken’ bulbs such as ‘Inner Wheel’, ‘Insulinde’ (1915) and ‘Saskia’ (1958) must be grown at a considerable distance from the ‘breeders’ or solid-coloured examples like ‘Bleu Aimable’ (1916, beautifully bruised lilac) in order to prevent tulip breaking virus (TBV) from spreading throughout the stock. There is a very real risk that TBV, which is carried by aphids, will be transferred from a flamed or feathered plant on to a solid one and cause the outer layer of pigment (anthocyanin) to shatter and ‘break’. In the 17th century such breaks were fervently prayed for, as they made or broke men’s fortunes, but nowadays we seem to value the integrity of the unbroken tulips. Once broken, a tulip will never revert to its original state, and the breeder (or mother) tulip in all its burnished beauty will have been lost forever.
There are so few surviving tulips from the 17th century that each and every one deserves to be nurtured. In John Parkinson’s Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (1629) dozens of tulips are depicted in illustrations, but less than a handful are still to be found in existence – it delights me to recognise ‘Duc van Tol Red and Yellow’ among the woodcuts and know that it is still growing in my tulip field. In the same vein, the Dutch Golden Age bloemenstillen are an endless source of discovery, where I can spot the ancestors of a rectified tulip such as ‘Saskia’ looking remarkably similar to a striated scarlet and yellow tulip tucked into a vase of flowers painted by Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, back in the first quarter of the 17th century. During that frenzied period of tulip fever it could be less expensive to commission a painting of a broken tulip than to actually own one. The respective values of the commodities have now reversed, with the paintings now selling for millions of pounds apiece and the tulip industry pumping out three billion bulbs per year.
My long-term aim is to lend a hand in the preservation of historic tulips so that they can be enjoyed by future generations, both as living plants and as pressed specimens – for in addition to the collection I have been creating a herbarium over the past few years. In the short term I am afforded the opportunity of basking in the antiquity and beauty of these extraordinarily rare flowers as they bloom for a few precious weeks every spring.
In addition to growing the historic tulip bulbs themselves, I have started to create a herbarium, or collection of pressed flowers. Relatively modern cultivars from the 20th century like ‘Insulinde’, with its dense petals and sap-filled stems, present a challenge to press. They must be gently sandwiched between layers of blotting paper and transferred to a fresh, dry patch every few days. It is important that they are allowed to slowly desiccate and compress, as they will turn to mush then mould if the process is rushed and too much pressure is applied; I think I have finally mastered the art of preserving them after several seasons of practice. The earlier, more delicate members of the collection such as the Duc van Tols (and many of the species tulips that I grow) have proven to be more straightforward to work with, pressing readily and perfectly. Once thoroughly dried the specimens are mounted onto acid-free card with the expert help of India Windsor-Clive of JamJar Edit. When finished they are evocative of the paintings created by Jacob Marrel (1614-1681) for tulip books, where individual examples of jewel-coloured broken tulips were displayed side by side as an early form of bulb sales catalogue, complete with butterflies and bugs to add a layer of naturalistic reality. I am sometimes tempted to capture a butterfly from the garden and preserve it between the layers of pressings.
The pressed, mounted tulip specimens must by stored in the dark to maintain their richly saturated colours, although they will still eventually start to fade. I have recently commissioned a handmade leather box to house the loose-leaf herbarium collection, crafted in the bindery of my family business George Bayntun of Bath (established by my great-grandfather in 1894, now in the hands of my brother Edward Bayntun-Coward). The drop-over box is covered with a tobacco brown morocco, lined with marble paper and tooled in gold with a tulipa praecox taken from a woodcut in an early work by Carolus Clusius. It is a fitting tribute to a collection of such rarity.
Polly Nicholson is writing a book about tulips to be published by Phaidon in spring 2024. Bayntun Flowers is open by appointment only and for National Garden Scheme open days (under Blackland House). Deatils: bayntunflowers.co.uk or Instagram @bayntunflowers
A version of this article appears in the July 2023 issue of The World of Interiors. Learn about our subscription offers
