Tulip Trail: Beautiful Blooms Spring Up at Newfields

We had a very short period of spring-like weather here in central Indiana, preceded by a long winter with snow lasting through mid-April, and followed by an early summer, with a very hot, dry May.  It was a very unusual spring season that started out with extreme lows and ended with extreme highs.  Everything was late to start blooming, and the cooler weather flowers didn’t last long once the 90s hit.  There were about two weeks of beautiful spring weather, and luckily they coincided with the day I spent outdoors at Newfields for their Hello Spring and Perennial Premiere events.

The Perennial Premiere is held each year toward the end of April and features high quality perennial plants and flowers from compact varieties to large shrubs plus native plants, all geared toward Indiana gardens.  Many of the flowers in my yard that have thrived the most are those I purchased at past premieres.  Saturday’s sale gives shoppers the best selection and Sunday’s sale yields the best deals, as all remaining plants are half off.  In addition, members get a 10% discount on their total purchase both days.  Since Mom and I went on Sunday, April 29, the selection was smaller but there were still a lot of good flowers left. This year the plant sale was on the sidewalk in front of the museum, near Five Brushstrokes by Roy Lichtenstein.

At the Perennial Premiere, I bought several small perennials for my fairy gardens, Oriental Lily, Strawberry Seduction Yarrow and Golden Bleeding Heart, and finally planted everything on May 7 and 9.  I love bleeding hearts but I don’t really have a shady, well drained spot big enough to put them, so my hopes aren’t very high that my plant will survive the dry, shady space I crammed it in, between my boxwoods and hostas.  I planted my Oriental lily next to my Asiatic lily for comparison.  It’s a tall skinny thing so far.  It is supposed to bloom right after the Asiatic lily and the flowers are supposed to last longer and be larger and more fragrant.   I also bought more yarrow to fill in my side yard.  Normally my side yard is very wet but with hardly any rain this May, the yarrow is probably going to do better than it has in the past since it prefers hot, dry conditions. The fairy garden plants I bought were Golden Stonecrop Sedum, SunSparkler Dazzleberry Sedum, Ice Plant, Variegated Sea Thrift, and Lewisia – which I’d like to transplant to the rocky areas of my garden this fall to see if I can get it to come back, since it doesn’t survive winter weather in my containers. The Lewisia was so pretty this year.  I bought two plants and one of them turned out to have pink flowers and the other peach. They bloomed all throughout May and were just gorgeous in my fairy garden.  I’ll be sharing photos of my fairy gardens and flowers soon.

Hello Spring is the name of Newfields’ garden display of beautiful spring flowers that peaks in April and May.  The gardens were designed by horticulturists to bloom in stages throughout the spring season, so every visit yields beautiful blooms at different peak times.  Last year was the first year they debuted this flower-packed spring garden event, then named Spring Blooms: Celebration of Color.  The museum’s gardens have always been beautiful, but now they’re extra colorful thanks to all of the additional bulbs planted in the gardens during fall the past two years. There are supposed to be 250,000 flowers planted, but it seemed like even more to me.  The gardens of endless color were just beyond gorgeous.  The tulips are my favorite and several varieties of them were blooming during our visit.

The garden path of spring showstopper flowers first led to the Garden for Everyone, where some of the prettiest tulips could be found.

Next the garden tour continued to the Four Seasons Garden, where bulbs were planted around the fountain, and bleeding hearts and unfurling ferns could be spotted along the wooded paths.

At the end of the Grand Allee, opposite the Lilly House, stands Mom’s favorite sculpture at Newfields, The Three Graces, which reminds her of her and her sisters.  It was surrounded by beautiful white and yellow tulips.

In front of the Lilly House was this gorgeous color palette of pretty tulips.

The cutting garden near the greenhouse seemed to have every variety of tulip imaginable.  It would be a dream to have a cutting garden like this to make beautiful bouquets from!

Inside the greenhouse were beautiful tropical plants like bromeliads, succulents, and orchids.

We stopped at the beer garden for a lunch break of delicious Italian food from the food truck that was there that day. In front of the beer garden was this giant birds nest.

Mom enjoyed relaxing in the Formal Garden, while I explored the Ravine Garden behind the Lilly House.

We finished off our visit inside the museum by stopping at the new exhibit, Bes-Ben:  The Mad Hatter of Chicago.  Benjamin B. Green-Field who along with his sister Bessie created the Bes-Ben fashion label, designed hats with unusual adornments and everyday decorative objects.  Celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor and Judy Garland were fans of his hats.  Over sixty of these hats were on display, and some of them were truly bizarre!

I’ll be heading back to Newfields this summer to check out Summer Wonderland: Spectacular Creatures, on exhibit this June through August, and you can bet I’ll blog about it!  The exhibit will feature nearly 500 animals made from brightly colored recycled plastic.  The sculptures stress the importance of environmental issues.  A large blue snail was in the lobby as a preview for the exhibit, symbolizing regeneration and the progressive nature of time.