the tulips are going over

The tulips are almost over in the garden now. The flaming exotic parrots are (as it turns out) the latest as well as the largest of the tulips. That one in the middle is the size of a dinner plate. Subtle they're not. Deep mulch this winter, I think, to see if they can be persuaded to come back again (I don't lift ...well, any bulbs, if I can help it). The interlopers are Anagallis (top left) which normally sulks and dies for me, but it looks like I've finally found a tough one; Sparaxis which I have finally persuaded to come up by putting it in the Fig Tree's pot (coincidentally the sunniest spot in the garden) and my very first Petunia.





That top centre one, with the exquisite curled lavender-brown petals, was a fringed variety that faded from deep crimson to gold-touched pink like a fancy curtain left in the sun, draining off the last of the colour before flinging its petals aside just this week. Hard to believe they're the same flowers (below).