Park Avenue’s Spring Tulips Available Now

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY – A mayor facing federal charges. A consequential presidential election. Ongoing violence in the Middle East.

There’s a lot happening out there, but even as winter approaches the promise of spring renewal is nearly in the ground.

“Who doesn’t like tulips?” said Barbara McLaughlin, president of the Fund for Park Avenue.

The organization, which will celebrate its 45th anniversary in 2025, tends the plantings on Park Avenue’s malls between East 54th and East 96th Street.

In November, it will bury approximately 66,000 bulbs on Park Avenue.

Tulips grow from bulbs, which store nutrients over the winter and begin sprouting in the spring when temperatures rise. The bulb sends out roots, and a stem emerges, eventually blooming into the characteristic colorful flower above ground, usually in April on the Upper East Side.

Bella Blush, Purple Pride, And Yellow Parade

This fall, green-thumbed New Yorkers – or those who aspire to be so – have the opportunity to purchase their very own set of Park Avenue’s famous tulips, in bulb form.

Each pouch – at $150 each – includes ten such bulbs, with a multiplicity of varieties whose names could very well suit a certain kind of pampered pet: Bella Blush, Purple Pride, or the dazzling Yellow Parade.

The money raised by the sale will support the Fund for Park Avenue’s work.

“Everything we do is privately funded,” McLaughlin said. “We work closely with the Parks Department, but we pay for the tulips, the fir trees, the mums, and the maintenance,” she explained, referring to the Avenue’s other seasonal foliage and its associated costs.

In all, that amounts to about a million dollars.

“We have two more weeks of the mums – we like to keep them up through the New York City Marathon – and then in early November we will take out the mums, plant next spring’s tulip bulbs, and receive a delivery of over 100 fir trees,” she said.

“We start putting the firs up on the malls around Veterans Day – they’ll be lit in early December – but we’ve got to get the tulips in the ground before the trees can be installed.”

A Closely Guarded Secret

This complex choreography includes a May tulip dig, when the public is invited – trowels in hand – to unearth the current year’s bulbs and remove them to their own gardens or other parts unknown.

“This year, they were gone in a day,” McLaughlin said. “We had people ask if they could come at 12:01 a.m.”

The dig prepares the malls for the tulips to come.

“We like to change the color every year,” McLaughlin said.

Next year’s color?

“I cannot say,” McLaughlin replied. “I’m not at liberty to tell you. But it’s going to be interesting. Last year, we used a peony tulip for the first time. They were magnificent.”

More information is available here.