Here's a bit more regarding the "tulip incident" at Hvidore:
"There is one amusing story about Olga’s sons from this time in Denmark. Tihon used to call it, “The Tragic War of the Tulips.” It was during the summer at Hvidore and he must have been about six years old, and Gury two years younger. In front of the entrance there was an enormous bed of flowers, thousands of tulips that had been given as a gift. So when spring came all of those beautiful tulips came up like a carpet of color.
Now, as a small boy, Tihon had a passion for flowers, and Grand Duchess Olga allowed him to play with the tulip petals that had dropped from the vases. He wasn’t allowed to touch the flowers in the vase, but the fallen petals were all right, and their waxy colorful surfaces fascinated him. He also knew that when the healthy ones wilted, they would soon drop. Well, here the temptation began. One summer afternoon, a section of tulips in the stupendous bed near the entrance was accidentally missed in watering, and in the warm sun they began to droop, so he decided that these could be played with. The two boys, then about six and four, dutifully armed them- selves with wooden swords, and Tihon took command and said, “Off to war. We’ll cut off the heads of our enemies.” So, they went to war, straight into the flower bed, chopping off tulip heads left and right: Tihon, completely carried away, yelled, “Come on Gury, don’t hang back, fight like a man, we are winning the battle...” Gury was more doubtful, however, and began to sniffle, saying, “Maybe we should stop, maybe we’ve killed enough.” “Coward, we must fight to the end!” But the war ended suddenly with the nanny grabbing Tihon by the nape of his neck, exclaiming, “Are you out of your minds? What are you doing?” Of course Tihon was the oldest, so he took the consequences.
They got lectures, first by the nanny, then by Papa, then by Olga Alexandrovna, who came down from her mother with a message that Grandmama did not want to see the vandals, not because she wanted to punish them, but because she couldn’t bear the sight of hooligans."
This comes from this website:
http://www.roadtoemmaus.net/back_issue_articles/RTE_11/To_Be_and_Not_To_Seem.pdf
