TULSA, Okla. — Drive through one south Tulsa neighborhood, and you'll find a dazzling display of tulips.
The neighbors love it so much, one even reached out to 2 News anchor Karen Larsen and insisted we needed to see it and share it with our viewers. So, she dropped by the place they call "the tulip house" and found a love story.
In the language of flowers, tulips speak of perfect love in the gardens of the Roberts family home in South Tulsa. For each one of the 15 years they have lived there, Dr. Ed Roberts, a retired dentist, planted tulips for his wife, Dorothy.
"I'm not the gardener. He is the gardener!" Dorothy Roberts said with a smile. "He orders from the same company every year... and he got more and more and more. It's just something he had a passion for. He loves them!"
What Ed Roberts loves the most, his family says, is his wife of 67 years. Together, they had four children, 12 grandchildren and 5 great grandchildren. Every year, when the tulips bloom, they all come home to get their pictures taken with the tulips. The Roberts encourage the neighbors to enjoy them, too. In return, neighbors and complete strangers leave notes of gratitude in their mailbox almost every day.
Dorothy read one of the cards saying, "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Roberts, Thank you for bringing joy and color to the neighborhood," Dorothy reads from one card. "This time I'll bring some color to you." As she finished, she held up a colorful paper bouquet of tulips made by a child.
Planting 10,000 tulips became an annual family project. Last November, Ed Junior helped place each one where his Dad wanted.
"We spent a few hours doing that together. It was a job for sure," Ed Roberts Jr. said. "A lot of hard work but it was a father-son kind of thing and we had a good time doing it."
When the landscape crew came that weekend to plant the bulbs, Ed's father suddenly fell ill.
"So he laid in bed while they planted tulips," Ed Roberts, Jr. said. "And then on that night we took him to the hospital... and we lost him a few weeks later."
Dorothy admits she misses her beloved Ed dearly. Now frail herself, Dorothy can see through every window of their home that their yard is abloom with yellow. It is her favorite color. The red varieties were planted to show Ed's love for her.
"This year I think it's more than it's ever been," Dorothy said.
Her husband is not here to see the blooms Dorothy and even the neighbors say are bigger and more beautiful than ever. It is bittersweet. For the family says this will probably be the last year of the tulip tradition.
"It will be sad," her son added. "It will be sad but we will carry on the tradition in our own homes and we would hope that others would as well."
Tulips last only 17 days before the last petal falls. This year, the Roberts plan to treasure them even more, in memory of the man they lovingly called the "Tulip King."
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