One of my favorite childhood memories were spending Sunday's driving to my parent's favorite restaurant Patricia Murphy's in Westchester, NY with my Aunt Sadie. It was a magical place. We would wait for hours for a table, strolling through their magnificent gardens and shops. My two favorite tulip designs were the Windmill made from tulips and the clock, (which actually told time) unfortunately I only have my memories as there are no pictures.   This is where I fell in love with tulips, my favorite flower.

Patricia Murphy was also known as the Tulip Queen, in addition to her gardens, and greenhouse there were at least 50,000 tulips blooming at one time. Her gardens won awards and contained many flowers in addition to tulips.  They also sold their flowers in the gift shop, along with their famous Popover recipes.   I've attached some images from the Internet as the restaurant has been closed since 1971. The restaurant was on 10 acres of land, which the highway department gutted to put in a strip mall when they closed them down.  It breaks my heart that the view of tulips has been replaced with a Staples.

Tulips bloom between March and May, I always get some for-Mother's Day.   I have grown them throughout the years in my back yard. Unfortunately, they didn't come back this year due my soil having a lack of phosphorus, so I bought some yellow and orange ones for the house. Tulips are native of Asia which surprised me because I always associated them with the Dutch, due to their use in paintings and the fact that the Netherlands are their biggest producers. Tulips come in a variety of colors, red is the most popular, however the most famous is the Queen of the Night which is dark purple almost black one. Their colors are associated with meanings. If you went to the florist, they could tell you what each color means, white: purity, pink:  happiness etc.…

 I was reading some fun facts about tulips; they were named for the Persian word for turban because of how they look.  Second, they are edible, seems in WWII people ate them in place of onions cause that's what they taste like. Third, the spiritual meaning of a tulip is perfect love which was derived from a Persian folktale of love between Farhad and Shirin. This tale is very similar to Romeo and Juliet.  Fourth, at one time they were the most expensive flower in the world.