Tulips For Jessica Simpson

Born July 10, 1980, singer Jessica Simpson can claim the lovely spring tulip as her birth flower. Fortunately for her, her rise to popularity didn't involve the treachery and intrigue that the tulip's rise did.

Once a wild flower in Central Asia, the tulip began its life as a domestic flower around 1000 AD when the Turks began planting and growing it. (The term "tulip" is derived for the Turkish word for turban.) Then, in 1593, biologist Carolus Clusius introduced the tulip to Western Europe and the Netherlands when he planted the first bulb in Holland. Clusius was the director of Hortus Botanicus in Leiden, which was the oldest botanical garden in Europe. While working for the University of Leiden to research medicinal plants, he received a gift of some bulbs from his friend Ogier de Busbecq, the Ambassador to Constantinople.

It wasn't long before the tulip gained amazing popularity as a decorative gardening flower. It became one of the most heavily traded products, especially in Holland. Because the tulip was so popular, its bulbs commanded an astounding price on the market. During the height of its popularity in late 1636 and early 1637, tulip bulbs sold for such high prices that they sometimes cost more than the houses they were grown around! They were so coveted that there are reports of a single bulb commanding a price of $1,500 worth of goods. People were so crazy for tulips that they sometimes sold their businesses, homes, livestock, and dowries to cash in on the tulip-trading craze. Unfortunately, with the laws of supply and demand being what they are, the market could only hold up so long and when it crashed it took many traders down with it causing mass bankruptcies and loss of savings. The crash was so significant that it lead to special governmental rules concerning the trading of tulips.

Today tulips continue to be a very popular, but thankfully they don't command such a high price. Bulbs are usually planted in the fall, with October being the best month for planting to yield flowers in the spring. They come in a wide array of colors and varieties. Planting a few different types of tulips that bloom at different times from late March to late May can allow for beautiful flowers for up to six weeks.

Tulips make wonderful flowers for cutting and displaying in a vase. They do best in clean water and the stems should be trimmed one to two inches every couple of days to keep them fresh for a longer period of time. Tulips continue to grow even after they're cut, so they may twist and bend due to the weight of the blossom and its desire to move toward light sources. This unique trait makes them easy to arrange and fun to observe, as they look a bit different every day.
 
 

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