Do all of these tulips have a white edge to the leaves like the red one? It's hard to tell from the photos.

Oh! I had thought you meant first white, then yellow, then peach/orange, then red.

Sorry, no explanation I can give....

The little red tulips are the same ones in both photos and the first ones like this and the only ones like that to come up and bloom this year. I split and replanted bulbs last fall.

The only source of these bulbs is from the original bulbs taken years ago [ maybe 10 or 12 by now] from my rental where they bloomed white for the renter.

I am out in the country with no other tulips close to me and have not brought any other bulbs here except for some daffodils which did not even make it through our winter freeze. They were no shows in the spring several years ago.

It seems to be a mystery, I am glad to think they are not diseased [ maybe] because I will keep splitting and redoing them as long as they will grow. I cut off the tops and remove after bloom so seeds are not even an option.

Yes, Montana is a hard place to grow a lot of things that I was used to growing in Washington. Creeping phlox for one thing, gets a real winter kill.

The leaves are all colored the same, on the red tulip, they are smaller, funny thing I noticed this morning is that the leaves even have red on their tips.

I think your idea of enjoying them, for as long as they stay around, is a good idea. It will be interesting to see if the red one is still red next year and maybe more robust.

Caroline thank for the call out to another thread asking about color change in blooms. The thread "Flower Changed Color" in Ask a Question forum

Yep, growing in Montana is a survival game, what survives, I feed and water.

PS I did not feel like a nut this morning so i put a pix on

Oh this avatar looks much more interesting than a nut.

Is there any streaking in the leaves?

No streaking of the leaves and the white line is more pronounced in the photo than the real thing, I don't know why the closeup showed it so well, but how about the red tips? Woo EEE ooo, alien tulips

The first years we lived here, on the place up on the bench, I bought and planted red and yellow glads, I took the bulbs up each fall so they would not freeze, split them off and replanted the best ones each spring, on the third year, some bloomed salmon colored. They were so pretty until the jack rabbits ate them all off. They seemed to really love the salmon colored ones best. I brought some of them down to the new place here and they bloomed red, yellow and salmon until the bulbs just gave out.

Another case of changing color in bulbs that I have witnessed.

As I have researching this phenomena, I am beginning to see that it happens in a number of plants. Even sempervivum can do this in some cultivars. S. 'Raspberry Ice' is one of them.

What about the red tips on the tulip leaves? Have they been there all along and I did not not notice?

It seems like some do and some don't. And many I think start getting a red tip when stressed or ending the bloom cycle. Another great question to research.
No red tips here.


I find many in our database with no red tips, then again there are many that do have red tips.
http://garden.org/plants/searc...

I went out and looked at mine, they are all showing a tiny bit of a red tip, but they have been finished with blooming for a couple weeks. Soon the leaves will be brown and dead.

A moment for your eyes, then the flower dies

Oh but that moment is so worth it. I love going out to the beds at the end of winter and seeing blooms opening. Once it starts the show lasts until killing frost. A wonderful succession of different plants blooming.

I had some of those tulips in red, the ones with the frilly tops, back in Wa.

Anyone know what these wildflowers are? I looked in my two books, "Northwest Weeds" & " Wayside Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest" and found nothing that matched these beautiful things. I have no idea what the root system is on these and this is the first time I have seen them on my dog walking pathway.

The leaves are small and like parsley leaves:

Those are Larkspur.

Good call Carol.
What a beautiful flowers. Deen you can post your photos to this database entry. They could be very helpful to others in seeing them growing in their natural habitat.
Nuttall's Larkspur (Delphinium nuttallianum)