The red and purple flowers of Tulip 'Little Beauty'

Gleaming Gems: Tulipa humulis ‘Little Beauty’

Posted on by Ann Mackay

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These bright little flowers are Tulipa humilis ‘Little Beauty’, a dwarf tulip that is creating a vibrant glow of colour here in my garden. They are very small tulips, growing only 4 to 6 inches high, with flowers around the size of a large crocus.

My reason for planting these, as opposed to the bigger tulip cultivars, is that they are a species tulip. That means that they are fully perennial and will probably multiply over the years. Most of my larger tulips have gradually died out and now there are just a few lonely leftovers scattered here and there in the borders. (The exception to this is a clump of viridiflora tulips which continue to flower well and slowly increase in numbers.)

I’m glad to say that these dwarf tulips have been a success since they were planted in 2002, having – so far – reliably reappeared each spring. Their resilience encourages me to try more species tulips in future. (I still like the bigger hybrid tulips, but to avoid the sad look of stray tulips left alone as they dwindle, I’d plant the hybrids in pots initially. After their first year I could move the bulbs to a mixed cut-flower area in our planned veggie garden to see if any survive and flower again.)

Tiny though they are, these tulips make plenty of impact when the sun shines. Then the petals open wide, allowing you to see their attractive markings. Inside the deep crimson flowers are centres of a rich purple-blue, edged by a border of pale pink. For me, ‘Little Beauty’ certainly lives up to its name, with its vivid colouration adding a lively gleam to the springtime garden.

Reddish-pink flowers of Tulipa humilis 'Little Beauty', which have a purple centre.
The crimson flowers of Tulipa humilis ‘Little Beauty’ have a purple-blue centre.
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Published by Ann Mackay

Photographer, mixed-media art adventurer and completely daft about plants.......

14 thoughts on “Gleaming Gems: Tulipa humulis ‘Little Beauty’”

  1. They truly deserve their name. I will plant mine in the garden once I redo the area and hope that they do in fact multiply. Tulipa sylvestris has reliably come back, but my Persian Pearl disappeared after only one season.

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    1. Ah, I had Persian Pearl too and there was just one left – I had hoped that they would last. I noticed today that there were quite a few tulip leaves that I hadn’t noticed before, so hopefully there will be some flowers yet to come. Hope your Little Beauty tulips do well in the ground!

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  3. I like the thought of little tulips. Never having seen them, I don’t know, but I suspect that they wouldn’t become so floppy as they age. Thinking back to my mother’s tulips, it seems to me that they usually began flopping over at some point — but that was a long, long time ago, and my memory could be faulty.

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    1. True – they’re so short that there’s not much likelihood of flopping and the foliage around them would also help to prop them up anyway. When you pick tulips they do tend to bend and can end up with interesting curves to their stems. (It’s a while since I’ve had enough tulips to feel that I can pick some for the house though.)

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