Best perennial tulips

[CallMeMousie]

Last year's Farmer Gracy 'perennials' have failed to put out a single flower this year, but I have random tulips not bought as perennials which come back year on year and look great! Even my Queen of the Nights had a good 3 years or so of looking good before they started losing vigour.

I wondered what tulips MNers have which are robust and come back reliably year on year? Pinks would be ideal but I'm open to anything pretty which I can stick in the ground once and get a few years of pleasure from!

Little Beauty is pink and pretty reliable.

Oh dear! I’ve just bought a bunch of FG perennials. Hope I’ll have some luck with them.

@AlwaysGardening thank you! They look very sweet, will give them a try!

@Maggiethecat I mean specifically FG perennial tulips, which were fabulous in the first year and have done nothing at all this year. Other perennials have been a bit hit and miss but I've had some good ones from them so it's not all bad news! Although I'm realising their marketing is just too slick and I need to have my head turned less.

@Maggiethecat I've had a lot of success with Farmer Gravy perennials. Though I've seen on another thread that they aren't terribly popular.

@CallMeMousie which tulips did you try that haven't come back?

I did quite a lot of research on this last year (I'd really prefer not to spend the time or the money on rebuying tulips every year). Species tulips should be definitively perennial but are much smaller than the tulips we tend to be familiar with.

Next are viridiflora tulips - I am trying some of these this year (Spring Green - currently in flower and Greenland - yet to flower).

I've read that Angelique (which I love) come back year on year. I had 20 or so last spring and planted another 32 bulbs last autumn. I don't think the original 20 have come back but hard to tell as none have flowered yet.

I also read the Pride so we'll year on year so I planted some Apricot Pride which are flowering now.

Sorry, not a huge amount of help as I won't know how they do year 2+ until next year.

I'd also love to hear what others have found.

@Muststopeating these are the ones I got: https://www.farmergracy.co.uk/products/tulip-pride-mix-bulbs-uk - based on the fact the description says they come back year after year! Maybe you could argue they don't like the spot but I've got other tulips in the same area which come back fine. In fact looking at that order I had a few bulbs from them which have utterly failed - but last year I blamed it on the spring being so miserably wet.

Your list of potential tulips is absolutely excellent and just what I wanted thank you! I do have a few species tulips dotted around but the big showy ones do cheer up the garden and are lovely to cut too. My grandmother had the most incredible vibrant red ones which came back enormous year after year and I still regret not digging out the bulbs when we sold her house. Thanks again for sharing your research!

Thanks Both. I’ve potted up
a load and will plant out soon. They look healthy enough so far except for some liriope which were largely blackened leaves on arrival so will watch them closely.

Oh @Muststopeating I just noticed you said you'd tried Pride which is what I've struggled with - fingers x you have more success than me!

I have Little Beauty too, and every year there are more flowers, so they don’t just come back but they naturalise.

I don't find any tulips come back in my heavy clay soil. A shame but I think you do have to have ideal conditions.

If you want the big red ones you need a Darwin tulip - they're the more basic type, unlike the decorative ones FG etc sell.

Ballerina comes back reliably for me, Negrita lasted a good few years before disappearing. I'll be getting more, it's a great tulip. Dolls minuet also keeps returning. Queen of night only gave me one year.
I've got some of those giant red ones but can't remember what they are, they just keep coming back. Some were here when we moved in nearly twenty years ago!

So... There has been a muddle and either the Angelique tulips or the Groenland tulips I was sent were wrong. And the ones I have instead are bloody red... In a purely pastel coloured bed.

Worse still they are lily flowered red, which seems to quite often be perennial.

I obviously have no idea what actual type they are because they are a mistake (need to figure out which ones I don't have now so I know which provider to complain to) but if they come back next year I'll post a picture and see if anyone on here can identify them. 😂🫣

Who wants to place a bet that they'll be the one only ones which do well again next year?

No named varieties I have planted are completely reliable but Darwin hybrids tend to persist for a few years. I particularly like Menton.

I do have some random red and yellow tulips that have been thriving and even multiplying for at least a decade in a neglected border but I've no idea what they are ...