Description

Tulip Red Impression is one of the most commanding Darwin Hybrid tulips, renowned for its giant, goblet-shaped blooms and its ability to dominate spring borders and landscapes with bold, saturated colour. Its flowers are a brilliant scarlet red, broad-petalled and luminous, glowing with fiery intensity in bright spring sunshine yet retaining depth and richness on overcast days. Each bloom can measure up to 10 cm across, making it one of the largest and most powerful red tulips in cultivation.

Reaching 55–65 cm tall, Red Impression is a tulip built for scale. Its strong stems and thick petals stand upright even in Ireland’s notoriously changeable spring weather, withstanding Atlantic winds and showers that might topple weaker varieties. Flowering in mid-spring, it bridges the gap between early Single Earlies and late Single Lates, offering a sustained period of colour right at the heart of the tulip season.

As a Darwin Hybrid, Red Impression is not only bold but also reliable and perennialising. When planted deeply in fertile, free-draining soils, it will return year after year, often producing larger and more dramatic clumps over time. This makes it especially valuable for landscapers, councils, and designers looking for long-term performance in public beds, parks, and large-scale planting schemes.

Its open goblet form makes pollen accessible to bees, giving it modest biodiversity value compared to tightly double-flowered types. To enhance ecological impact, it can be combined with alliums, muscari, or camassias, ensuring extended forage and layered seasonal interest for pollinators.

In planting design, Red Impression is unmatched in presence. In civic beds or roadside planting, its immense blooms create a wave of red that commands attention from a distance. In private gardens, it is best planted in drifts of 10 or more, where its size and colour can be fully appreciated. It partners beautifully with white tulips like Maureen, deep maroons such as Queen of Night, or pastel tones like Menton for a softer blend. Underplantings of blue Muscari armeniacum or pale yellow narcissi add further dimension and seasonal continuity.

Plant bulbs in autumn in sunny or lightly shaded sites. Its scale and reliability make it one of the very best choices for Irish gardens where impact, durability, and perennial performance are prized. For gardeners and landscapers alike, Red Impression is a tulip that delivers both immediacy and longevity — a true backbone variety for any red-themed planting scheme.