Description

Organic Lily-Flowered Tulip Ballerina is a strong choice for Irish trade customers who want a tulip with shape, scent and colour rather than a standard bedding form. The flowers are slim, elegant and distinctly lily-flowered, with pointed petal tips that open and flare as the bloom matures. The colour is a vivid tangerine-orange, sometimes showing red or yellow tones depending on light and flower age.

For Irish planting schemes, organic tulip Ballerina is best used where people will pass close enough to notice both the flower shape and the fragrance. It works well beside hotel entrances, courtyard seating areas, estate paths, public garden borders, civic planters, business frontages, large containers and Tidy Towns displays. The strong orange colour is visible from a distance, while the narrow lily-flowered outline gives the display a lighter and more refined look than double tulips or large Darwin Hybrid blocks.

Ballerina is particularly useful late in the tulip season, when its warm colour can follow yellow narcissus and earlier tulips. It combines well with purple tulips, dark maroon tulips, white narcissus, blue muscari, late alliums and cream tulips. Supplier descriptions note that Ballerina is one of the few scented tulips, with warm orange reflexed petals and late April flowering.

In Ireland, plant in autumn into fertile, free-draining soil in full sun or partial shade. Avoid heavy, waterlogged ground through winter, and use raised beds, improved drainage or containers where drainage is poor. Because lily-flowered tulips have elegant, pointed petals and relatively tall stems, they are best placed in reasonably sheltered positions where spring wind and rain will not spoil the open flowers.