Colorblends Wholesale Flowerbulbs

Where do tulips come from? Most people associate tulips with Holland, but they didn't originate there. Tulips hail primarily from the mountainous regions of Central Asia, where many can still be found growing wild today.

Compared to the hybrid varieties, wild tulips can look small and delicate, but these beauties are tenacious, having endured for hundreds, and probably thousands, of years in the forbidding mountains and hidden valleys of Central Asia and the Middle East.

Want to dive deeper? Check out https://www.tulipsinthewild.com/ to see an interactive map with images shot over two decades by five adventurous Dutch friends and tulip hunters on expeditions to the barren steppes and rugged peaks of some of the world's more difficult terrain in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and more.

Images, in order:
• Bakeri Lilac Wonder Tulips
• Lady Jane Tulips
• Red Beauty Tulips
• Persian Pearl Tulips
• Tarda Tulips
(Video at the end shows Lady Jane tulips at our display garden in Bridgeport.)

Picking bulbs for the first time can feel overwhelming. Hundreds of varieties, colors, bloom times, sizes, heights. Where do you even start? Here is our advice if you are new to bulbs.

At Colorblends, we want you to have a great spring display. But let’s face it—planting is hard work.

We suggest you order in small bites to learn what it takes to get bulbs planted in the fall.

If you like the result in the spring and you feel you can do more, order more the following fall. This gradual approach will be good for your back, your budget, and your learning curve.

Learn more here: https://www.colorblends.com/new-to-bulbs/

Here’s a secret: most of the people who call Colorblends are new to bulbs, or they just can’t decide. That’s normal. Here are some of our most frequently asked questions.

Got a question we didn't cover? Ask it in the comments or send us a DM.

🌷 Reserve your bulbs at https://www.colorblends.com/all-spring-flowering-bulbs/utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=summer2026

Takeaways from the display garden:
Colorblends is always planning one spring ahead, but in order to do that, we also have to look backwards. Spring 2026 at our display garden in Bridgeport, CT, was full of learning moments that we are taking into next year.

Weatherwise, there was a nearly 50-degree temperature swing over the course of the spring bloom, but overall the temperatures worked in our favor. There was a short heat wave of 80-degree temperatures in early spring that hastened the daffodils and burnt the early tulips, but it was followed by cool temperatures in the 40s and 50s that made the mid- and late-season bloomers last longer than normal. Those cool days included two nights of frosty weather, but spring flowers are made for the cold, and they did just fine once the sun came back out.

Specific varieties that performed well include:

• Daffodil Jetfire had a good run, starting early, and continuing strong.

• Our double tulips held out well, because most of the spring was quite dry. Doubles tend to get knocked around with a lot of rain, but last longer in drier weather.

- - Double Shake, a double tulip variety, had an especially impressive show, starting with more yellow coloring, and finishing with a lot of white and dark pink. (Pictures 2, 3, and 4)
- - Pax et Amor™ a double tulip blend (Picture 5)
- - Alison Bradley, a double tulip variety (Picture 6)

• The blends Lemony Remedy™ and Dawn to Dusk™ were both quite impressive as well. (Pictures 7 and 8, respectively)

One blend that took a surprisingly long time to open up was Apples to Oranges™ (last picture). This blend was in one of the shadiest spots in the yard, which just goes to show that the location of planting can meaningfully affect flowering time, even in the same garden.

At first glance, you might do a double take. A peony in spring? It’s not a peony. It’s a double tulip.

When most people think of tulips, they picture the classic bloom of a simple, goblet-shaped flower. But double tulips are something else entirely. Layer upon layer of petals creates a bloom that looks strikingly similar to a peony yet arrives weeks earlier in the spring garden.

Fluffy, ruffled, big, broad, dense, bold, demure. Mix and match those adjectives how you like, but the effect of these flowers in the landscape is always the same: sensational.

Plant some this fall. You'll be glad you did.

Shop here: https://www.colorblends.com/spring-flowering-bulbs/tulips/tulip-doubles/

What is the difference between cubed and squared tulip blends?

Cubed Tulip Blends comprise an early, mid and late variety to give you an extended run of spring bloom. Flowering is sequential, but overlap is common, and welcome.

The Cubed Blends have been popular for many years, but for some commercial customers, they bloom too long. These customers need to have the tulips done and out of the way so that the summer annuals can go in on schedule.

Time and manpower are precious in the spring; a landscape professional can’t be waiting for the tulips to finish when dozens or even hundreds of flats of annuals sit baking in the parking lot outside the office.

Solution: Squared Blends. They combine an early and a midseason tulip to provide extended bloom without risk of delaying the petunia planting.

Can’t believe it’s June already. What’s happening right now with flowerbulbs in the Netherlands? Seemingly nothing, but this is actually the most crucial time. The flower heads have been cut off and the fields are just a sea of green leaves soaking up the sun. For the next 8-10 weeks, the foliage will gather energy and direct it straight into helping grow a large cluster of bulbs in the ground below.

In mid-summer, the growers will begin the next stage of the process, which is to dig up the bulbs, sort them by size, and set them out to dry, preparing the large ones for export and the small ones for planting again in the fall.

Getting a spring display to *pop* isn't just about picking bulbs you like. It's about picking varieties that can bloom simultaneously, reach compatible heights, and have colors and shapes that all add up to “POP!”

Figuring that out is what Colorblends does.

Every combination in the catalog has been developed, tested, and refined, starting with varieties identified in the Netherlands, then planted and observed at the Colorblends USA trial garden in Bridgeport, CT.

There are plenty of varieties that may look like a perfect match on paper, but nine out of ten trial combinations don't make it. Most of them fail for reasons that only show up after actually seeing the results in Spring. It could be that bloom times don't quite overlap, colors clash, one tulip gets lost because it's too short or too small, or one is too overpowering.

The blends that make it into the Colorblends catalog are the ones that wow. That's why we call them “Car-stopping Displays.”

When you plant Colorblends this fall, you're not crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. You're planting something that's been put through its paces and proven.

Most flowerbulbs are forgiving about which way they go into the ground. Thanks to *geotropism,* they find their way up, so if one lands on its side, don’t worry, it knows what to do.

Alliums are an exception.

Because of the way they develop, alliums do much better when you plant them right-side up. The pointed end faces up and the flat end (with the dried roots) faces down. In fact, allium growers in the Netherlands manually orient every bulb at planting to prevent the bulb having to expend extra energy to grow. It may take a few extra seconds, but it makes a real difference.

The good news is that alliums are easy to read. We walk through it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9BRBM1z1xI

Browse our allium selection at colorblends.com and order for fall planting.

(Geotropism is a plant’s response to gravity. Bulbs know to send shoots up and roots down.)

Allium Bulbs: Which End is Up? At Colorblends Wholesale Flowerbulbs, we get a lot of questions about which side of an allium bulb should be planted up and which side should be planted down...