Are your tulips looking stumpy rather than stately? When garden writer Lia Leendertz tweeted: "My tulips have come up rubbish and dwarf. Anyone got any theories on this?" I dashed outside with a tape measure. My newly flowered orange "Ballerina" tulip – described as "tall, thin and very beautiful" in the books – was measuring up at 33cm, nearly half of its predicted 55-60cm height. Tulips vary in height – some varieties are only 20cm tall – but a stumpy ballerina is not a good look.
Returning to Twitter, other gardeners were weighing in with tales of tiny tulips from Worcestershire to central New York state: and the problem seemed worse for those growing in pots. "Everyone's talking about having stumpy tulips", blogged garden writer Michelle Chapman. I turned to my tulip bible, Anna Pavord's Bulb, for help. Tulips grow wild in central Asia, and need "a steady supply of moisture" when preparing to flower, she writes. Aha – could the recent drought have stunted my blooms?
As luck would have it, I had an appointment to meet Chris Blom, expert tulip grower at Blom's Bulbs in Melchbourne, Bedfordshire. He grows tulips on top of a cold, windy hill because that's where they like it, he tells me. "Tulips like moisture in the spring and to be baked in the summer. The time when they need the most water is three or four weeks before they flower," he advises. So that warm, dry spell a few weeks back seems to be to blame. The good news is that this week's downpours should bring on a good display of late-flowering tulips come May. Just don't forget to give those in pots some extra water (from a can, not your hosepipe, of course).
