The Classic Flower That Can Bring A Chocolatey Rich Color To Your Garden

Cut flowers make for wonderful gifts on most occasions, as they're able to brighten up just about any interior decor. However, you may not know that gifting different types of flowers has historically delivered unique meanings. For example tulips (Tulipa) were said to convey passion in the Victorian language of flowers. Tulips have an incredibly diverse range of blooms, able to be divided into at least 15 categories based on shape and origin, so there is no shortage of options to grow in your garden for landscaping or future gift-giving. One unique variety of tulip that really leans into that sense of passion, bringing about darker raspberry chocolate-colored petals, is the "black hero" cultivar.

Black hero is a type of peony tulip, or peony-flowered tulip. These fit a designation of "double late" tulips, which have far more than the six-petal average for most other varieties—making them look more like peonies once their large flowers open up. Despite its visual differences, a black hero tulip is still grown like other members of the Liliaceae family's Tulipa genus; the best time of the year to plant your tulips is during fall. Double late varieties like black hero are annual bulbs, which means you'll have to replant your garden every year (luckily you can dig up a tender bulb and store it indoors for the winter). Once you see these chocolatey flowers begin to bloom, however, you'll know that it's worth the effort to overwinter year after year.

Tulips are native to southern Europe and central Asia, able to thrive in USDA Hardiness zones 3 through 8. This means you should be able to grow chocolatey black hero tulips practically anywhere in the contiguous United States—if you're close to the cold Canadian border, however, you may be out of luck. Bulbs should be buried around a depth that's three times the size of the bulb itself, pressed well into the soil with their stem side pointed up and root base pointed down. Double late tulips can grow as tall as 20-inches, so there's no need to be concerned about potentially burying your flowers. Still, you want to make sure the soil you're using is right. It should be well-draining soil with a high degree of organic matter, and your black hero tulips will need to be sown at least two bulb lengths apart (though tulips broadly need less-than a foot of space available to grow).

These flowers will thrive with full sun conditions, when given at least six hours of direct sunlight each day, and they should be put in protected locations so there isn't any damage via strong winds or rain. The best method to consider when watering your tulips is only watering the bulbs when your soil dries out. Otherwise, you risk causing root rot by having your tulips linger in standing water. Double late tulips such as black hero tend to look best in groupings of about a dozen flowers. Grown right, you can expect them to have late blooms, likely in mid- to late-spring.

Before going all-in on a garden of tulips, it is worth noting that they are problematic for house pets such as cats and dogs, as well as a mildly toxic plant to human beings. Direct interactions with tulips can lead to contact dermatitis, and consumption (especially of the bulb) can lead to stomach pains, nausea, vomiting and more. However, this hasn't stopped tulips from being an important part of human history—especially in relation to the Dutch golden age—so you shouldn't let that scare you if you're interested in growing a garden of velvety black hero tulips.

One nice thing about this particular variety of tulip is that it doesn't just need to be grown as the centerpiece of your garden; black hero tulips can also be grown via indoor pots or at the border to line other plants (though tulips are not resistant to deer, as with many other varieties of border flowers). You'll still want to be careful about what flowers grow alongside your black hero tulips, assuming you're planning to give some away. Another popular spring flower, daffodils, should never be included in a bouquet of tulips—no matter how well they contrast the chocolatey color of a black hero variant. Cut daffodils emit a sap that's toxic to tulips, leading to a reduced vase life.