Varieties provide four to six weeks of stunning colour, writes Val Bourne

Thank heaven for the tulip, particularly those that flower in the second half of April and May, for they lift the garden when the spring flowers have almost faded and the summer ones are still waiting in the wings.

Mine have been cooed over by village visitors on Rogation Sunday mainly because our garden is on the outer reaches of the village, so the congregation came and the tulips stole the show. I have potfuls of them by the porch although this year they hated the hot days of mid-April. The large tubs contain the ones I approve of and I’ve planted the yellow ‘Akebono’, ‘Orange Emperor’, the orange and purple ‘Princess Irene’ and the sultry ‘Queen of Night’.

I have some unknown quantities grown for the first time because, if I fancy a new variety, I buy ten only and test them out for two or three years by keeping them in the same pot. I will not grow ‘Purple Peony again: it doesn’t live up to the hype. Growing ten also gives me a good chance to assess the foliage, some of which can be ugly. If it’s too wide it smothers your herbaceous plants. I look at the bulbs in September to asess whether or not they have any perennial tendencies and will therefore be useful to leave in the garden. Some make good bulbs, others split and divide.

The fringed purple tulip ‘Cuban Night’ and the sombre-red lily-flowered tulip ‘Lasting Love’ will be planted in the borders this autumn. The pink sport of ‘Princess Irene’ is ‘Pretty Princess’ and it shares the same white-edged neat foliage. This faded badly in hot sun, but I am going to grow it again in pots, and place it in the shade or semi-shade.

Most of my tulips are in the ground and they are left in year after year. After flowering they are cut back to one large leaf and over the years I’ve come up with a reliably perennial list of good doers. They may flower for five years, but as time goes on the flowers become more diminutive. I admire this variation in size because it avoids the rank and file look that tulips can have.

My rose and peony borders have a combination of five that come back year after year. They are the terracotta lily-flowered tulip ‘Ballerina’, which is woven round the roses because it flatters the coppery new rose foliage. The purple ‘Negrita’, the white flamed purple ‘Rem’s Favourite’, the very late ‘Bleu Aimable’ and the mauve mottled ‘Shirley’ add the contrast and give me four to six weeks of colour. In recent years I’ve added pink bleeding heart or dicentra, now officially named Lamprocapnos spectabilis, so I need a pink tulip to tie into this and I’m considering the lily-flowered ‘Jazz’, a relatively new vivid-pink.

If it seems a little premature to think about tulips, it’s really the best time. I used to make my order in August and couldn’t quite remember what needed topping up, for if you leave your tulips in you must add more when and as necessary. Fergus Garret, of Great Dixter, gave me that tip and I’m eternally grateful. He also put me on to a Darwin tulip that changes colour from yellow through to sunset-orange, appropriately called ‘Daydream’.

Like all Darwin tulips it’s early and very perennial. Fergus admires the way it changes colour in different lights, varying from apricot, through to warm orange and yellow with red highlights. He uses it with the shiny green parsley-like foliage of Ferula tingitana ‘Cedric Morris’, but I like it with wallflowers. It’s his favourite. Mine is probably ‘Orange Emperor’, for I love the green shading on the apricot flowers.

Fergus Garret also relies on the bright-red ‘Apeldoorn’, a Darwin Hybrid, which opens wide in sun showing off its black and yellow base – but never losing control. He uses it next to the silvery Artemisia lactiflora. ‘Spring Green’, a very perennial viridiflora, will happily clump up or can be allowed to dribble through tight spaces, giving ebb and flow to the border. Mine mingle with ferns in shady spots.

Fergus and I agree on which are the most perennial ones, which is heartening because he’s in East Sussex, and we also use Peter Nyssen (www.peternyssen.com).

Plant once the temperatures fall in October, November and into December, to a depth of about three inches, and then wait for the floral fireworks next spring.