A Turbulent History

Pink Tulip

 Tulips caused an eco­nom­ic bub­ble in Hol­land in the 16th century.

Tulips orig­i­nal­ly grew on the wild hill­sides of Turkey and were intro­duced to Europe in the 16th cen­tu­ry where they became immense­ly pop­u­lar.  The name “tulip” was most like­ly a Latinized form of the Ara­bic dul­band mean­ing “tur­ban.” It was said that tulips got their name when Turk­ish men wore tulips tucked into their tur­bans, but it’s also said that the tulip looks a lit­tle like a turban.

In Hol­land, tulips became so pop­u­lar that in the 1630s, the price of one bulb was the equiv­a­lent to a small house in lit­tle town of Delft where the famous painter Ver­meer lived. Due to lots of spec­u­la­tion of the sup­ply of tulips, the bot­tom even­tu­al­ly fell out of the mar­ket in 1637. The gov­ern­ment of Hol­land banned spec­u­la­tion on tulips after many for­tunes were lost and the econ­o­my collapsed.

The most pop­u­lar type of tulip bulb pro­duced an attrac­tive striped flower. A famous ver­sion of this flower was called the ‘Sem­per Augus­tus’ and was white with red stripes. No one knew what caused the “break­ing” of the col­or and since it was rare, it was one of the most expen­sive bulbs. Lat­er, it was dis­cov­ered that this was caused by a virus that was spread by aphids.

The Meaning of Tulips

Dur­ing the Vic­to­ri­an era, the study of “Flo­ri­og­ra­phy” was tak­en seri­ous­ly by many a young lady. This was the study of the mean­ing of flow­ers. Tulips have var­i­ous mean­ings: fame, char­i­ty, the per­fect lover, con­sum­ing love, hap­py years and mem­o­ry. To give a red tulip meant to “declare your love.” Pink tulips sig­ni­fy imag­i­na­tion, dreami­ness. Var­ie­gat­ed (or striped) tulips mean beau­ti­ful eyes. White tulips sig­ni­fy lost love and yel­low tulips sig­ni­fy hope­less love. You can learn more about the mean­ing of flow­ers from a great book called The Mean­ing of Flow­ers by Gretchen Scoble and Ann Field.

Buying and Caring for Cut Tulips

  • Buy the blooms when they are still closed but you can see the col­or on the out­side of the bloom. Make sure the blooms are not too far above the tips of the green­ery. The taller the blooms are above the green­ery, the longer it’s been since they were cut from the grow­ing fields.
  • When you bring the flow­ers home, con­di­tion them. Mix flower food and cool water and fill the vase with enough water to cov­er the first 4 inch­es of the stems.
  • Cut the white ends off of the stems and pace in a tall vase so the stems are sup­port­ed inside the vase. Alter­nate­ly, you can gen­tly wrap the stems in butch­er paper to sup­port and straight­en the stems before putting them in the vase.
  • Be sure to cut the stems right before plac­ing them in water. Don’t delay!
  • Put in a cool dark place for an hour or two. NOTE: Tulips are attract­ed to light, so they will turn in the direc­tion of the light and that is why you want to con­di­tion them in the dark.