Green is everywhere in the spring garden, but it is not where we usually expect to find it on a tulip.
That is precisely what makes ‘Spring Green’ so distinctive.
Its elegant flowers are creamy white to ivory, each petal marked through the center with a broad feather of fresh green. As the flower matures, the white becomes more pronounced while the green stripe remains, producing one of the cleanest and most sophisticated color combinations among tulips.
There is nothing gaudy about ‘Spring Green’. It is cool, restrained and remarkably versatile—a tulip that can look equally appropriate in an old cottage garden, a formal border or a thoroughly modern landscape.
Why Is It Called ‘Spring Green’?
For once, a tulip name requires very little detective work.
The flowers really are spring green.
Each creamy-white petal bears a conspicuous green stripe or flame running through its center. Unlike the accidental green that occasionally appears in ordinary flowers, this coloration is a defining genetic characteristic of the Viridiflora tulips.
The name therefore describes both the flower and the season remarkably well. Its fresh green markings are almost exactly the color of young leaves emerging throughout the garden in spring.
One could hardly have named it more appropriately.
When Was ‘Spring Green’ Introduced?
‘Spring Green’ was introduced in 1969 and is generally credited to the Dutch firm Gebroeders Van den Berg.
That makes it a relatively modern tulip compared with some of the old cultivars that have survived from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but more than half a century of continued commercial production has established ‘Spring Green’ as something of a modern classic.
It has also received the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit, recognition of its value as a dependable garden plant.
Its continued popularity is particularly impressive because Viridiflora tulips occupy a rather small and unusual corner of the tulip world. ‘Spring Green’ has escaped that niche to become one of the best-known green-flowered tulips of all.
What Type of Tulip Is It?
‘Spring Green’ belongs to Division 8, the Viridiflora Group.
The name Viridiflora comes from Latin: viridis means green, while flora refers to the flower. Green-flowered is therefore essentially what the name means.
Viridiflora tulips are distinguished by a characteristic green streak, stripe or flame on the petals. The amount of green varies tremendously among cultivars. Some flowers are predominantly another color with a narrow green stripe, while others display so much green that it becomes the dominant color.
‘Spring Green’ strikes an especially pleasing balance.
The green is strong enough to be unmistakable, but the creamy-white margins give the flower lightness and contrast.
An Unusual Chapter in Tulip History
The green coloration of Viridiflora tulips has an interesting botanical origin.
The group developed from tulips showing unusual green pigmentation in their floral parts. In ordinary flowers, petals develop their characteristic colors while losing much of the chlorophyll associated with leaves. In Viridiflora tulips, portions of the petals retain chlorophyll, producing the characteristic green markings.
In other words, part of the petal behaves—at least in its pigmentation—a little more like a leaf.
What might once have been regarded as an oddity became something worth preserving and propagating.
Gardeners have always had a weakness for botanical oddities. Fortunately, occasionally one of them is beautiful.
Where Does ‘Spring Green’ Come From?
‘Spring Green’ itself is a cultivated Dutch garden tulip, not a species collected from the wild. Its immediate origin therefore belongs to the Dutch bulb-growing industry rather than to a particular mountainside in Asia.
Its deeper ancestry, however, ultimately leads eastward.
The wild ancestors of our garden tulips are principally associated with Central Asia and adjoining regions, particularly the mountainous country extending through Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and surrounding areas.
Tulips evolved in climates characterized by cold winters, moist springs and comparatively dry summers.
That ancestry still governs how modern tulips behave in our gardens.
They enjoy moisture while actively growing in spring, but dormant bulbs generally fare poorly in persistently wet summer soil.
A Late-Season Tulip
‘Spring Green’ is a late-flowering tulip, generally blooming in late April into May depending upon climate.
This is one of its great virtues.
Early tulips can sometimes seem painfully brief. They flower gloriously, a spell of warm weather arrives, and suddenly the performance is over.
Viridiflora tulips help extend the season.
By combining early, midseason and late tulips, gardeners can maintain flowers over a considerably longer period. ‘Spring Green’ makes an especially elegant finale.
Flowers That Last
Viridiflora tulips are also known for unusually long-lasting flowers.
The blooms often remain attractive for an extended period, both in the garden and when cut for arrangements.
‘Spring Green’ grows approximately 18 to 20 inches tall, producing strong stems capable of carrying its substantial flowers.
That combination of moderate height, sturdy stems and long-lasting bloom makes it considerably more useful than its unusual coloration alone would suggest.
This isn't merely a novelty tulip.
It is a very good garden tulip that happens to be unusual.
How to Use ‘Spring Green’ in the Landscape
Perhaps the greatest virtue of ‘Spring Green’ is its versatility.
Green and white are already present almost everywhere in a garden. Consequently, ‘Spring Green’ rarely fights with its surroundings.
Instead, it tends to connect other colors.
It can be used in formal beds, perennial borders, cottage gardens, cutting gardens and containers. It is particularly effective where its unusual flowers can be viewed fairly closely.
Plant it near a walkway and people will notice that something is different.
From a distance they see elegant ivory tulips.
Up close they discover the green.
Pair It With White
For an exceptionally clean planting, combine ‘Spring Green’ with pure white tulips.
The green-striped flowers provide just enough variation to prevent an all-white planting from becoming monotonous.
White daffodils can serve the same purpose.
This combination works particularly well around traditional architecture, stone walls, brick walks and formal garden spaces.
It is quiet without being dull.
Pair It With Purple
One of the finest companions for ‘Spring Green’ is deep purple.
The contrast is magnificent.
A dark purple tulip—something in the plum, aubergine or near-black range—provides visual weight, while ‘Spring Green’ brings light and freshness.
The green markings serve almost as a bridge between the dark flowers and surrounding foliage.
This is one of those combinations that looks carefully designed even when the gardener has done little more than choose two good tulips.
Pink Works Beautifully, Too
Soft rose, blush and pale pink tulips make excellent companions.
The effect is gentler than purple and particularly appropriate for cottage gardens.
A planting of white, green and pale pink has an almost antique quality, especially among old roses, peonies and traditional perennials.
For something stronger, use deep rose or burgundy.
‘Spring Green’ can take it.
Try It With Black Tulips
For a thoroughly dramatic combination, pair ‘Spring Green’ with one of the nearly black tulips.
The contrast between creamy white and deep maroon-black is striking, while the green stripe keeps the combination from looking too severe.
A broad drift alternating dark tulips with ‘Spring Green’ can be spectacular in a formal bed.
Sometimes restraint and drama can occupy the same garden.
An Excellent Tulip for Containers
‘Spring Green’ is particularly well suited to large pots and containers.
Its moderate height prevents it from becoming top-heavy, and its unusual flowers can be appreciated at close range.
For a simple container, plant the bulbs densely and let ‘Spring Green’ stand alone.
For something more elaborate, underplant them with white violas, pale pansies or other low spring flowers.
A dark container—charcoal, aged terracotta or black—can provide particularly handsome contrast with the pale flowers.
Use It Among Perennials
Like all tulips, ‘Spring Green’ eventually leaves behind declining foliage.
Don't cut it off prematurely.
The leaves need to continue photosynthesizing after flowering so the bulb can store energy.
Instead, plant the bulbs among perennials that emerge as the tulips finish.
Hardy geraniums, peonies, hostas where conditions are appropriate, and other spring-growing perennials can gradually conceal the yellowing tulip foliage.
By early summer, there need be little evidence that the tulips were ever there.
Until next spring.
Superb for Cutting
‘Spring Green’ is also an outstanding cut flower.
The long stems, durable flowers and green-and-white coloration make it particularly useful in arrangements.
Unlike strongly colored tulips, it doesn't dictate the entire palette of a bouquet. It can accompany pink, purple, burgundy, yellow or white flowers and still look perfectly at home.
A vase containing nothing but ‘Spring Green’ is also remarkably elegant.
Sometimes simplicity wins.
Can ‘Spring Green’ Come Back?
Viridiflora tulips are sometimes reported to return more reliably than some other highly bred tulip classes, although expectations should remain reasonable.
Tulips are not daffodils.
For the best chance of repeat flowering, plant the bulbs in full sun and fertile, sharply drained soil. After flowering, remove the spent flower heads but leave the stems and foliage until they have yellowed naturally.
Summer drainage is especially important.
Remember the ancestral climate of tulips: winter cold, spring moisture and a relatively dry summer dormancy.
Hot, soggy soil is not a recipe for a long and prosperous tulip dynasty.
Plant in Groups
As with most tulips, ‘Spring Green’ becomes much more effective when planted generously.
Ten bulbs make a nice group.
Twenty-five begin to make a statement.
Fifty or more can form a broad ivory-and-green ribbon through a border.
Because the coloration is restrained, large plantings don't become overwhelming. In fact, this is one tulip that becomes increasingly elegant as the number of bulbs increases.
A Tulip Unlike Most Others
‘Spring Green’ succeeds because it occupies a curious middle ground.
It is unusual without being bizarre.
It is colorful without being loud.
It is sophisticated without requiring a sophisticated garden.
Its creamy-white petals streaked with living green seem perfectly suited to the season in which it flowers—a time when the entire garden is exchanging the dull colors of winter for the fresh green of another year.
Introduced in 1969, ‘Spring Green’ has remained popular for more than half a century. That is no small achievement in a bulb trade constantly introducing something new.
Some tulips shout for attention.
‘Spring Green’ merely stands there looking elegant—and somehow gets noticed anyway.
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