Sri Chinmoy Tulip

Did you know that some tulip flowers are officially named after someone or something? Examples include presidents, royalty or famous people.

There are currently over 3,000 varieties of tulips and the Royal General Bulbgrowers Association in the Netherlands keeps careful track of all the new hybrids with the International Cultivar Register of Tulip Names.

Sometimes an unnamed tulip receives the name of a person, place or thing recognizable to many.

Some of these tulips with famous and recognizable names can be found in Keukenhof, an amazing huge garden located southwest of Amsterdam in Holland (or the Netherlands), the modern-day tulip capital of the world. If you love tulips, this is a must see place to go. It is the biggest bulb flower garden in the world with 4.5 million tulips.

Over 44 million people have visited it and it is the most photographed spot on the planet. New to Keukenhof in 2009 is the “Walk of Fame” which features tulips named after people and things. There you can find tulips named after the band Pink Floyd, the Disney character Donald Duck, the famous Indian actress Aishwarya Ray, 4-time Olympic medalist Inge de Bruin, Ferrari, Prince Willem-Alexander and more.

My meditation teacher Sri Chinmoy is one of these notable people with a tulip named after him. The tulip is is an orange/red colour with a yellow edge on the petals. It was cultivated by Jan Ligthart and was officially inaugurated as the Sri Chinmoy Tulip on April 30, 2005 in Keukenhof in conjunction with the World Harmony Run arriving in Holland. The tulip is “permanently listed in the International Cultivar Register of Tulip Names” according to the official certificate received during the tulip’s inauguration.

I was lucky enough to purchase some of these Sri Chinmoy Tulip bulbs in order to plant them in the yard of my home and I have flowers blooming right now this April.

It took two years for me to succeed (squirrels are a big problem in my yard) but it was worth the wait. In 2008, I planted my first Sri Chinmoy tulip bulbs brought all the way from Holland by some of Sri Chinmoy’s Dutch students. I tried my technique that worked like a charm in previous years where I waited to plant the bulbs in early December to thwart the squirrels from eating them. No charm this time – not a single tulip bloomed the following Spring.

So last Fall (2009) I switched it up and tried a different technique to protect the tulip bulbs from getting devoured by the squirrels. I put Shake Away granules to deter squirrels from coming around the area where they were planted. This time it worked! I have my first Sri Chinmoy Tulips blooming in my yard in Rhode Island. I would happily do a commercial for Shake Away, having used it to get rid of a mystery critter living under my shed and to get mice to move out of my house. But back to the tulip…

The tulip is quite stunning. I particularly like the way it looks like light is emanating from it when the sun hits it. For a tulip to look like it is giving off light is rather symbolic given that it is named after a spiritual teacher who dedicated more than 40 years of his life to helping seekers find divine light, truth and peace.

Here are some photos of the tulip:

Everything that slows us down and forces patience,
everything that sets
us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help.
Gardening is an instrument of grace.
- May Sarton

Center of Tulip Closeup - Photo by Sharani

Shortly after I bought my first home, flush with newness and enthusiasm, I planted an abundance of flower bulbs – tulip, crocus, daffodils. I added bone meal to deter squirrels from eating the bulbs and waited for the wonder of spring color the following year. To my dismay, the only flowers that bloomed from that massive planting were the daffodils. This novice gardener asked around and learned that the squirrels don’t like daffodil bulbs but that they surely ate the tulips and crocus. I was pretty dejected and my future gardening projects mostly were annuals or perennials added as an already existing plant rather than a bulb.

For at least the next seven years, I never tried to plant additional bulbs. Last Fall, I decided to research if there might not be some little-known remedy to deter squirrels from eating flower bulbs and again nearly gave up when most of what I read on the Internet declared it a truly lost cause.

With a tenacity to somehow persevere and make it happen, I finally found a site that said if you wait and plant the flower bulbs in December just before the ground freezes that the squirrels have finished their major foraging period and are not actively seeking out food.

Tulip Ringed with Raindrops - Photo by Sharani

Mother Nature and my own gardening laziness conspired together in this regard. Decembers have been relatively mild in New England the last couple of years and I’m so busy that I do not automatically think to complete gardening chores in a timely fashion. So in mid-December, I easily dug up dirt and planted tulip and crocus bulbs.

Tulip in my Yard - Photo by Sharani

Eureka! It worked. This spring I have tulips and crocus pretty much everywhere I planted them. I am giddy with tulip mania – maybe some of it rubbed off on me when I went to Turkey last year. Tulips are the national flower of Turkey and they were revered there long before they came to Holland.

Or maybe I am harkening back to growing up in Michigan with its own renowned tulip festivals in Holland, Michigan.

Regardless of the influence, I am so delighted that I did not give up in my quest to have tulips and crocus bloom in my yard. I am camera happy to take their portraits. This post is scattered with the results of said shutterbugging.

So if you are trying to keep squirrels from ravaging your flower bulbs, take my success story to heart. Plant them late, never give up and you too will find the perseverance of tulips is possible.

Quotes from Sri Chinmoy on this theme:

Inside each one of us is a beautiful flower garden.
This is the garden of the soul. With each lesson
we learn, the garden grows. As we learn together,
our individual gardens form a tranquil paradise.
- Sri Chinmoy

God’s favourite season is spring, when new hope, new life and new creation dawn. What God always wants from Himself is transcendence. This He can do only when He exercises new hope, new life and new creation constantly.
- Sri Chinmoy