The great hybrid tulips command attention by standing tall. Tulipa tarda takes almost the opposite approach.
Growing only a few inches above the ground, this little species tulip produces clusters of star-shaped flowers that are bright golden yellow in the center and broadly tipped with white. When sunshine opens a colony of them, the effect is rather like scattering dozens of little yellow-and-white stars across the spring garden.
It is small, tough, cheerful and remarkably willing to remain in the garden year after year.
For gardeners who would rather plant a tulip once than conduct an annual bulb-replacement campaign, Tulipa tarda deserves attention.
A True Species Tulip
Unlike ‘Oxford’, ‘Pink Impression’ and the thousands of other named garden hybrids, Tulipa tarda is a botanical species.
That distinction matters.
Species tulips are wild tulips—or selections very close to them—rather than the products of generations of breeding for enormous flowers, unusual colors and exhibition form.
Consequently, they often look quite different from the familiar Dutch tulip.
Tulipa tarda is low-growing, usually reaching only about 4 to 6 inches tall. Instead of producing one enormous goblet on a tall stem, a bulb can produce several flowers, creating a small bouquet just above the foliage.
The flowers themselves are pointed and star-like when fully open.
Where Does Tulipa tarda Come From?
Tulipa tarda comes from Central Asia, the ancestral heartland of many tulips.
Kew's Plants of the World Online currently recognizes it as native to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and northwestern Iran and describes it as a bulbous plant of the temperate biome.
Its association with Central Asia is important because this is the great natural homeland of tulips.
Long before Holland became synonymous with them, wild tulips were flowering across the mountains, steppes and rocky slopes of Central and western Asia.
The ancestors of the enormous tulips in our modern gardens ultimately came from this much harsher world.
A Plant Made for Mountains and Dry Summers
The natural conditions of species tulips also explain how they should be treated in gardens.
Tulips generally appreciate cool conditions and moisture during their active spring growth followed by warmer, drier conditions during summer dormancy. Free drainage is particularly important.
That is why species tulips are so often successful in rock gardens, gravel gardens and raised beds.
A dormant tulip bulb doesn't mind being dry.
Sitting in warm, waterlogged soil all summer is another matter.
The RHS recommends fertile, humus-rich but well-drained soil for T. tarda and warns against excessive wet.
When Was Tulipa tarda Introduced?
Here we need to distinguish between introduction to horticulture and formal botanical description.
The name Tulipa tarda Stapf was formally published in 1933 in the Botanical Magazine, volume 156, plate 9321. The botanist responsible was Otto Stapf, an Austrian-born botanist who spent much of his distinguished career at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
There is a little taxonomic wrinkle, however.
Stapf had described a closely related plant as Tulipa urumiensis in 1932. Modern taxonomic authorities now treat that name as a synonym of Tulipa tarda. Kew accepts T. tarda as the correct name and lists T. urumiensis among its synonyms.
So the safest historical statement is that Otto Stapf formally described Tulipa tarda in 1933.
That is more precise than saying that he "introduced" it in 1933, since the plant may have been present in European collections before its formal botanical publication.
Why Is It Called Tarda?
The specific epithet tarda comes from Latin and means “late,” “slow” or “tardy.”
In botanical names, tardus and its feminine form tarda generally refer to something occurring comparatively late.
The name is therefore usually understood as a reference to the plant's comparatively late flowering in relation to certain other small species tulips.
There is a certain irony here for gardeners, because Tulipa tarda still flowers during spring and is often described horticulturally as an early- to mid-spring bloomer.
Apparently even a tardy tulip keeps better time than some people.
Flowers Like Little Stars
The flower is what makes Tulipa tarda instantly recognizable.
When closed, the blossoms are fairly modest. Their outer surfaces may show green and reddish coloring, giving little indication of what will happen when the sun appears.
Then they open.
The six pointed tepals spread almost flat, forming a star with a brilliant yellow center surrounded by broad white tips. RHS Plants describes the flowers as white-tipped yellow, often with red and green flushing on the reverse.
A mature clump can carry numerous flowers simultaneously.
Because the plants are so low, the effect is not one of towering color but of a carpet of stars lying close to the earth.
Sunshine Makes All the Difference
Like many species tulips, Tulipa tarda responds dramatically to sunlight.
The flowers open widely in bright conditions and may close considerably when the weather is cool or cloudy.
That makes placement important.
Give this tulip plenty of sunshine if you want to see it at its best. The RHS notes that specialist tulips generally prefer sunny positions and that their flowers may fail to open fully in shade.
This is not a plant for a gloomy corner beneath an evergreen hedge.
One of the Best Tulips for a Rock Garden
If you have a rock garden, Tulipa tarda is almost tailor-made for it.
Its diminutive proportions look natural among stones, and the sharply drained soil commonly provided for rock-garden plants suits the bulb.
Plant bulbs in irregular groups rather than rows.
A dozen emerging from pockets between stones can look as though they simply appeared there on their own.
Twenty-five or fifty can eventually create a substantial colony.
The object should be to suggest nature rather than a municipal flower bed.
Excellent Along Walkways
Because Tulipa tarda is so short, plant it where you can actually see it.
The front edge of a border or alongside a walkway is ideal.
The RHS specifically recommends it for rock gardens, edging, beds, borders, containers and cottage gardens.
Along a path, the little flowers can be appreciated at close range, including the reddish and green markings on the backs of the petals that are easily missed from a distance.
It is a plant that rewards bending down for a closer look.
Let It Naturalize
This may be the greatest advantage of Tulipa tarda.
It is one of the tulips capable of naturalizing and increasing in favorable garden conditions.
RHS Plants specifically notes that T. tarda does not need to be lifted annually and can naturalize when planted in open ground. More generally, the RHS notes that specialist or species tulips are much more likely than ordinary border tulips to reflower and multiply.
That makes T. tarda fundamentally different from many modern hybrid tulips.
With a highly bred bedding tulip, the first year's display may be magnificent and subsequent years disappointing.
With Tulipa tarda, a modest initial planting can become better with age.
Now there's a refreshing concept.
Use It in Gravel Gardens
A sunny gravel garden provides another excellent home.
The drainage suits the bulbs, while the low-growing flowers appear naturally at home among gravel and stones.
Plant them among restrained, drought-tolerant perennials that won't smother the tulips during spring.
Low sedums, creeping thyme and other compact plants can make good neighbors, provided there remains enough open ground for the tulips to emerge.
As summer approaches, the tulip foliage disappears and the summer plants take over.
Try It in Containers
Small species tulips are also excellent for pots, troughs and containers.
T. tarda is particularly useful because its flowers can be brought closer to eye level, where their markings become much easier to appreciate.
Use a free-draining potting mixture and plant enough bulbs to create a generous display.
With bulbs this small, excessive restraint accomplishes very little.
A pot containing three bulbs looks economical.
A pot containing twenty looks like spring.
What Should You Plant With It?
Because Tulipa tarda combines yellow and white, it mixes easily with other early spring flowers.
Blue is perhaps the most obvious companion.
Grape hyacinths (Muscari) provide a low carpet of blue beneath the yellow-and-white stars. Small blue violas can accomplish something similar.
Dwarf daffodils also work beautifully, especially cultivars whose flowers are proportionate to the little tulips.
Small species crocuses can provide an earlier layer of bloom, while low-growing spring perennials can continue the display after the tulips finish.
The important consideration is scale.
Don't surround a six-inch species tulip with enormous plants and then wonder where it went.
Naturalistic Planting Suits It Best
Although T. tarda can certainly be used in formal beds, its character lends itself especially well to naturalistic planting.
Rather than spacing every bulb exactly six inches from its neighbor, plant little groups.
Five here.
Nine there.
Perhaps fifteen around a stone.
Allow spaces between the groups, and let them gradually expand.
The result eventually looks less like something installed on Saturday afternoon and more like a colony that has occupied the place for generations.
That illusion is one of the finest tricks available to a gardener.
Growing Tulipa tarda
Plant the bulbs in autumn in a sunny location with fertile, well-drained soil.
The RHS recommends planting T. tarda approximately 4 to 6 inches deep.
Good drainage is particularly important if you hope to keep the plants for many years.
After flowering, resist the temptation to tidy everything immediately. Allow the foliage to remain until it yellows naturally. Those leaves are replenishing the bulb.
If the plants are happy, offsets can be separated and replanted, although there is often little reason to interfere with an established colony.
Sometimes the best gardening technique is simply knowing when to leave something alone.
A Small Tulip With a Long Future
Tulipa tarda will never produce the enormous flowers of ‘Pink Impression’ or the towering red goblets of ‘Oxford’.
Nor should it.
Its virtues belong to another tradition entirely.
It gives us small star-shaped yellow-and-white flowers, compact growth, Central Asian ancestry and the ability to settle into suitable gardens and increase over time.
It belongs among stones, beside paths, at the front of borders and in sunny places where its flowers can open fully to the spring sky.
And there is something rather satisfying about planting a genuine species tulip.
Modern hybrids show us what generations of skilled breeders can persuade a tulip to become.
Tulipa tarda reminds us what a tulip was in the first place.
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