Tulip Praestans ‘Shogun’

Tulipa praestans ‘Shogun’ is rather special. It is a very early flowering tulip—in March and April—and it is one of the cheeriest starts to spring you could wish for. It produces four to six showy, fragrant flowers on each green stem, and these flowers are in a lively shade of tangerine orange. Beautiful broad, lance-shaped, silvery, blue-green leaves, provide the perfect accompaniment to this delightful multi-headed tulip.

This is one of the first—and finest—tulip hybrids to flower in grass, where it comes up reliably every year; British TV gardener Monty Don has planted swathes of this tulip in his garden in Herefordshire. Because it naturalises well, Tulipa praestans ‘Shogun’ represents excellent value for money. But this is not the whole story. It is also excellent as a border or container plant. And it would be a good idea to plant rather more bulbs than you need, so that you have some stems to cut for indoor vase decorations: tulips make wonderful cut flowers. Tulipa praestans ‘Shogun’ is in the Tulip Group 15 (Miscellaneous).