The bold and beautiful blooms of tulips light up the spring garden and no garden should be without them. There are endless tulips to choose from, and those that are along the orange and bronze spectrum, fading to peach and apricot are especially pretty.
Orange tulips combine with other 'hot' colours such as yellow or red, as well as with dark purple or purple-black tulips such as 'Negrita' or 'Queen of Night' for a contemporary look. They also combine beautifully with spring plants with blue flowers, such as forget-me-nots and pulmonaria. The paler peach and apricot varieties combine well with cream, white or pale pink tulips as well as the dark purple types.
As an added bonus, many orange tulips, such as 'Ballerina' and 'Cairo', are scented. We asked professional gardeners, plantspeople, garden writers and designers for the best tulip bulbs to grow, and list them here by colour to make choosing your scheme as easy as can be.
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The best orange, bronze, peach and apricot tulips to grow
Tulipa ‘World’s Favourite’
A brilliantly coloured tulip with very nicely proportioned, cup-shaped flowers presented on stout stems. It has a slight scent and looks lovely combined with the lush spring growth of perennials in a mixed border.
Award of Garden Merit. 40cm. April-May.
Tulipa ‘Brown Sugar’
This is a particularly lovely Triumph tulip with a gorgeous scent. Best used in mixed borders among herbaceous perennials, its coppery-bronze colour works well with the purple of ‘Negrita’.
30cm. April.
Tulipa orphanidea Whittallii Group
This diminutive tulip is thoroughly perennial given an open position with plenty of spring sunshine and summer baking. Discreet basal foliage throws a fine stem topped by onion-shaped buds, which open into cupped flowers that are yellow without and burnt orange within. When they splay open, an inky-green blotch is revealed at the base. Its punchy colouring makes a vivid presence, unusual in spring.
Award of Garden Merit. 20-30cm. April – May.
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Tulipa ‘La Belle Époque’
A different vibe to the classic tulip shapes with their saturated hues, it is a colour-shifting blend of apricot-pink and coffee that ages beautifully.
45cm. Late April - early May.
Tulipa ‘Lambada’
Salmon-orange petals with sassy yellow feather-edging make for a stunning combination.
Award of Garden Merit. 50cm. May.
Tulipa ‘Monte Orange’
A sunny yellow centre lights up brilliant, tangerine-orange blooms. Soft fragrance too.
35cm. Early to mid April.
Tulipa ‘Willem van Oranje’
A compact, upright, perennial with double, bowl-shaped, bright-orange, flowers streaked with red. Divinely showy and flamboyant.
35cm. April.
Tulipa ‘Cairo’
A Triumph tulip that is a lovely soft sandy bronze, and which gets browner as it ages. Broad, squareish petals make a flat-topped flower. An exceptional tulip and scented as well.
45cm. Mid April to early May.
Tulipa ‘Ballerina’
Elegant and sweetly scented of mandarin oranges, this tulip flowers in sunset shades of orange and red, netted together in an indistinguishable way. Lily-flowered with golden-orange tepals edged with a blush of pink.
Award of Garden Merit. 55cm. April to May.
Tulipa ‘Request’
Like so many other orange tulips, ‘Request’ is scented, which is a great bonus. The warm orange of the strongly reflexed petals has a clear tongue of pink overlaid on the outside.
45cm. April.
Tulipa ‘Apricot Pride’
A Darwin Hybrid tulip with the huge, square-shouldered blooms typical of that group. A soft colour, easy to use and lovely to pick.
45cm. Late April.
Plant choices and words: Jonny Bruce, Marina Christopher, Kristy Ramage, Camilla Swift, Anna Pavord, Hannah Gardner, Stephanie Mahon, Mat Reese, Polly Nicholson, Tom Coward, Alys Fowler, Dan Pearson, Tom Brown, Asa Gregers-Warg.
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