Mr Middleton's famous shop offers more than 1,000 varieties of bulbs, writes Jane Powers.
For the whole of March and April, the doors of Dublin city's best-known garden shop, Mr Middleton, were closed to customers. Inside - during what should have been the busiest trading months of the year - the staff were carrying out a grim task. They were assessing the damage from a fire that had started in the back room on Sunday, February 29th.
Nothing was salvageable, as the smoke and heat had destroyed the entire stock (including the thermometers, which showed a temperature reading of 50-something degrees). But everything had to be counted, which must have been heartbreaking. "Just to count the seeds (there were 50,000 packets) took a week of 12-hour days," says Thomas Quearney, who owns the shop with his brother, Gareth.
Fortunately (if anything can be deemed fortunate in such an event), they had opened a warehouse around the corner the previous week, so they were able to maintain their mail-order business from there. The shop reopened in May after a complete makeover, but it had been closed for the 25th anniversary of the business - a time when celebration, rather than reclamation, should have prevailed.
The main thing, however, is that it did re-open, and at the moment it is crammed with lovely bulbs - each one a package of floral promise for the year ahead. There are more than 1,000 varieties, which may well be the largest selection in the country.
One particular bulb that has been walking off the shelves, says Thomas Quearney, is the new Dutch iris 'Eye of the Tiger'. With ultramarine standards (the upright petals), blue-flushed mahogany falls (the hanging petals), and a gleaming golden eye, it is intensely sumptuous. Or rather, its image is - winking irresistibly from the packet. Let's hope the reality is equally gorgeous. There will be plenty of gardeners eagerly awaiting this iris's performance next May or June.
Tulips, of course, have been enjoying a strong renaissance. Anna Pavord's enthusiastically-researched book, The Tulip, published five years ago, helped to rekindle our passion for this most seductive of bulbs. Especially popular now are the modern lookalikes of the extravagantly flamed and feathered flowers that were the coveted subjects of Tulipmania, the craze that swept across 17th-century Holland.
Two newish, seemingly hand-painted ones are 'Zurel' (deep-crimson flames on a white background) and 'Portofino' (delicate red flickers on cream). But one of the most gorgeous (and the third best-selling tulip in Britain) has been around for half a century. 'Prinses Irene' was raised in 1949 and has a fruity orange base and purple-red flames with a sliver of green. And in case you wondered, the two front-running tulips are the pastel 'Pink Diamond' and the inky 'Queen of Night'.
Lily-flowered tulips, which were developed in Holland at the beginning of the last century, are reminiscent of the flare-mouthed Ottoman kinds of the 18th century. If you want the latest thing, then the first double lily-flowered variety is the bulb for you. 'Double Sensation' has many-petalled blooms in hot pink. I'm not sure if the elegant, waisted figure of the lily-flowered tulip needs an extra layer of skirt, but the breeders obviously thought so.
Staying with the supernumerary theme, you can now get a triple hyacinth, 'Isabella' - with bluish-purple drumsticks crammed with petals. The new double pink 'Rosette' is less confused-looking, in my opinion, while the single 'Red Magic' is perhaps the best of the three. But I am not a fan of hyacinths, except when they are flamboyantly planted en masse in big pots.
Speaking of hyacinths, the so-called grape hyacinths belong to a different genus, Muscari. Last year saw the mass introduction of the pretty, baby-blue 'Valerie Finnis', and this year brings 'Mount Hood', which is dark blue, with a white crown. 'Golden Fragrance' is that unusual thing, a yellow Muscari. The flower buds are flushed with a gorgeous papal purple, which disappears when they open fully. Apparently this variety is a hardy and free-flowering selection of M. macrocarpa, a native of Greece and Turkey.
Daffodils are a flower that breeders delight in removing further and further from the simple wild species. The split corona kinds are among the oddest looking: the trumpet (the corona) has been slit and blown back to meet the flattened halo (the perianth segments). 'April Sunset', is a new, icepop orange-and-yellow variety with a split and frilled corona.
Pink, as any narcissophile will tell you, is all the rage in daffodils. Hot off the breeder's bench is the small, American-raised 'Katie Heath', with "pink" (well, pale-pinky-salmon) corona and white perianth segments. At 25-30 centimetres tall, this is likely to be more weather-proof than some of the taller and heavier kinds.
And while we're speaking of recently-introduced oddities, I have to tell you about Camassia 'Blue Melody'. Collectors of variegated plants will be delighted to know that this blue-spired, American quamash has cream-and-green-striped leaves.
Most of the above are late-spring and early-summer bulbs. So let's not forget to plant for the start of the year, too: crocus, Iris reticulata and I. danfordiae, Chionodoxa ("glory of the snow"), Scilla and Cyclamen coum - to mention but a few early bloomers. Their ground-hugging flowers will help to hasten the spring, and shorten the dark winter - a season that is, I fear, being heralded by our increasingly abbreviated days.
[ mrmiddletongardenshop@eircom.net ]
It's Bulb Season