Tulip mania

The price of a house. Known as Tulip Mania, this is considered to be one of the first recorded instances of a speculative economic bubble that collapsed.

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Despite prices crashing, they've never gone out of fashion and happily they are reasonably priced and easily sourced.

Unfortunately most tulip flowers do not return as big and colourful as their first year so many gardeners treat them as annuals and start afresh every November. There are exceptions to this, particularly if you plant smaller species tulips that can naturalise.

Darwin hybrids are also a good investment as they will return year on year and are easy, low maintenance tulips. They have tall elegant stems and big showy flowers that open wide out to around 6ins in diameter.