Garden Diary – A Windy Easter Break with Tulip Mania

Easter week started off sunny with a cool breeze, but the wind cranked up by the weekend!

As the tulips started coming out in force, I found myself once again thinking about tulip mania that hit the world in the 17th century. I’m quite sure it would have grabbed me, I do love them so.

Unfortunately though, I had one of those annoying surprises, where a flower blooms and it’s the wrong colour! Eight supposedly dark pink tulips called ‘Ronaldo’, came up red.

Serves me right for buying tulips named after a footballer lol.

This seems to be happening more and more, I’ve tried twice to order an orange iris called ‘Oktoberfest’ and both times it’s flowered white. I’ve had a refund but that’s not the point!

Anyway the red tulips will find a home in the border somewhere, maybe next to the white iris!

It’s looking like we’ll be having a good pear harvest, if all the blossom is anything to go by. No doubt one of my relatives will be licking his lips at the thought of them.

We’ve been eating spinach from the greenhouse planted last autumn, which is suddenly growing mad after a sleepy over wintering.

Remember my crazy bee from last week, well I was over the moon when it made an appearance on the BBC programme, My Garden of a Thousand Bees. Funny how once you’ve discovered something you see it again.

The Easter weekend started off nicely on Good Friday, with beautiful sunshine on Easter Saturday, but as forecast ‘Storm Dave’ finally arrived Saturday night.

By Sunday morning all was calm again, but I got a shock when I went to open the greenhouse. The large brassica cover had blown into it. Incredibly luckily there was no damage done. Phew!

I hope you all had a good Easter break.

Monday 30th March 2026

Sunny, but chilly wind 🌞💨 The primulas are still performing well 🌿💕💕💕🌿 #magentamonday

Tuesday 31st March 2026

You know when your tulips start to open & you think 🤔 I definitely didn’t buy or plant any red ones! Then checking back through my records confirmed it! Bit annoying 😡

Anyway, they’re beautiful & can be re-homed ❤️❤️❤️ #tuliptuesday

Wednesday 1st April 2026

You’d struggle to put your finger between the Pear Blossom 🌸 Hoping for a bumper crop of juicy pears 🍐 #blossom #pearblossom #kitchengarden #homegrown

Thursday 2nd April 2026

I’m sure I’d have had ‘tulip mania’ back in the 1630’s 🌷🌷🌷

Imagine if you’d never seen these beauty’s before 😍

Put an ugly bulb in the ground in September & wait… magic 😊

#tulip #tulipmania #tulips

Over the moon that the first bee shown on the bbc prog My Garden of a Thousand Bees 🐝 was my newly discovered bee ‘A female hairy footed flower bee’ #insectthursday #bees @BumblebeeTrust #savethebees #hairyfootedflowerbee

bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod…

Friday 3rd April 2026

Wishing you all an enjoyable Easter weekend 🐣

I hope the wind isn’t as bad as they say, just as the tulips are looking at their best 🤞💙🌷💛💕

#FlowersOnFriday #EasterBreak #goodfriday

I’ve grown spinach in the greenhouse over winter. There were slim pickings in the depths but it’s gone wild now 🌿🌿🌿🌿

#homegrown #spinach #kitchengarden #growyourown

Saturday 4th April 2026

Happy Easter Saturday to you all 🐣

The tulips are out in force now, let’s hope Dave’s wind isn’t as bad as predicted! #StormDave #SixOnSaturday #tulips

Sunday 5th April 2026

It turns out Dave did have bad wind & somehow blew the brassica cage up in the air & into the greenhouse! Luckily the greenhouse is fine 😬 but the flowers in grans dolly tub took a bashing. I hope nothing worse happened to anyone. #stormDave #mygarden