Perhaps only Sylvia Plath, with her tortured poet’s mind, could so eloquently describe the complicated sadness of her world using the fleeting beauty of the tulip.

Parrot tulips are children of the nuclear age, mutated beyond recognition by radiation. In the 1970s growers used radiation in their fields to stimulate mutations of flower shape in the field.

Their red and white petals look somehow particularly innocent. The tulips know nothing of human life. Their cycle is driven by the clocks of nature in their all-knowing mystery.

"It's the cycle of life for a tulip — at least in New Orleans." Money for the tulips comes from visitor fees and donations to City Park.

Jay Wielenga introduced the idea of adding bicycles to the Tulip Festival back in 1998. By spring, the Fietsen Zangers, or bicycle singers, had formed. Between noon and 1 p.m. each day of the ...

Perhaps only Sylvia Plath, with her tortured poet’s mind, could so eloquently describe the complicated sadness of her world using the fleeting beauty of the tulip. The flowers command our ...

The tulip bulbs are planted in late fall, around September, and in November roots start growing out of the base as the bulb establishes itself taking in nourishment from soil.