The NCC tulip beds at Commissioner’s Park at Dow’s Lake are gorgeous this year. And they sure don’t look like the large beds of single colour tulips of your mother’s day. Monochromatic mass displays are so yesterday. Drastic colour combinations are IN.
Sometimes the new combinations include perennial beds. And new beds out in the flat lawn areas. The lawn beds can be operated for several years then grassed over and the tulips planted elsewhere. When Ontario banned cosmetic pesticides, it put the kibosh on large monoculture floral displays. Diseases and blights will remain in the soil, or spread unchecked by chemicals. So the new displays feature moving beds, or smaller areas of tulips set amongst other plant materials.
Like the annual displays seen last year at this park, the colour and plant combinations are striking.
Thanks for the AWESOME photos, Eric – I’m stuck way out here in Bells Corners, so I don’t often get to see tulips in person.
Our community was SUPPOSED to be participating in the Tulip Festival this year as the “Official West-end Destination” – the councillor and the Bells Corners BIA president staged a massive media event to announce the exciting news.
We were promised 100,000 tulips along the strip, a Bells Corners Tulip Parade organized by the local businesses (with Rick as parade marshall), and festive tulip banners all along the strip.
So far I haven’t spotted a single tulip and the parade idea fizzled. All we got was the tulip banners! They’re already gone, replaced by ads urging suburban-sprawl drivers speeding through our community to stop at a strip mall and buy something FAST before the number of boarded-up businesses hits three digits.