Tulipa Plaisir

Tulipa Plaisir is a dwarf variety with red-pink flowers, streaked with white, from March. It thrives in flower beds and creates spots of colour at the end of winter. It proves to be robust and reliable, drought-resistant, and undemanding, returning each year. One of the first blooms of spring!

The Greigii Plaisir Botanical Tulip belongs to the Liliaceae family. The species Tulipa greigii was the first to be cultivated from wild bulbs, which were brought from Uzbekistan to Germany in 1871. It is native to Central Asia and northeastern Iran. It has given rise to numerous cultivars including 'Plaisir'. This small tulip will not exceed 15 cm (6in) high when in bloom. Its foliage is a bright green, quite broad and marked with brown spots. The flowers appear in March, earlier or later depending on the climate. They are carmine red to very dark pink, streaked with pale yellow and edged with white. The base of the petals is warmed by a yellow hue. They bloom in the sun and close when it goes in.

Botanical tulips do not degenerate over time like large-flowered tulips. They naturalise and can remain in place for several years without special maintenance, thriving in borders and rockeries. To create colourful scenes, they can be planted with various small bulbs: Crocus, Allium moly, Ipheion uniflorum, Anemone blanda, small-flowered Daffodils, Muscari, Puschkinia, Cyclamen coum, Erythronium pagoda, Leucojum vernum, snowdrops, Scilla sibirica... These tulips are unparalleled in bringing spring colour to pots or sunny gardens.

Tulip species are found in most of the Old World, from Western Europe to China and Japan, through Eastern Europe, Asia Minor, and Central Asia. Their distribution area also includes North Africa and the Indian subcontinent. The centre of diversity of the genus is in the Pamir and Hindukush mountains and the steppes of Kazakhstan.

There are various wild species, many of which are endangered. These are either large tulips from crops, the most well-known being the Agen tulip (Tulipa agenensis), or small tulips found in wooded areas or among rocks in the mountains. In cultivation, these are called " botanical tulips", and one of the most common is the wild tulip (Tulipa sylvestris), which often used to grow sheltered by vines and whose subspecies australis is known as the southern tulip.