Apricot Beauty Tulip

Tulipa 'Apricot Beauty' is a Single Early tulip introduced in the Netherlands in the 1950s and still one of the most widely grown tulip cultivars decades later — a rare kind of staying power in a market that constantly turns over new introductions. Its soft salmon-apricot petals warm to a deeper rose-coral at the base and edges, and unlike most modern tulip hybrids it carries a light, genuine fragrance, opening among the very first tulips of the season on sturdy, relatively short stems that hold up well to spring wind and rain.

Culture is identical to any hardy tulip: plant bulbs in late fall once the soil has cooled, in full sun and sharply drained soil, and let the foliage die back completely before removing it. Its shorter stature and early bloom time make it especially useful massed at the front of a border or in containers, where it opens well before the taller Darwin hybrids and Single Lates take over — plant several tulip groups with staggered bloom times, and Apricot Beauty is the one that opens the show.