Around twenty years ago I planted some red tulips near to the house. Every year come rain or shine they come back. I have gone through phases of hating them and have come full circle.

This Autumn I decided to plant them up with some clashing reds and oranges, maybe even dark dark purple. But when it came to ordering them, I was seduced by akebono, a lovely yellow tulip with peach tones, streaked apple green.

And princess irene, a lovely orange and purple tulip. Fragrant but maybe a bit too tasteful for the red thugs.

I’m going to stick them into the bed but am not at all certain how it will work out.

Meanwhile in the front of the garden the Angelique bulbs have grown well and put on a lovely show but they could probably do with a few darker bulbs dotted in amongst them. I’ve ordered blue diamonds which are a similar double flower 40cm tall

The tulips in the iris bed have put on a good show, despite a very strange arrival (not ordered) instead of my china pinks. It looks like some kind of green/pink parrot.

This year I’m going to add in some of the china pinks to the new iris bed and see whether it peps up the scheme.

Mostly tulips seem to come back but each year just a little thinner, so my objective is to top up the number of bulbs each year, within the overall colour scheme set up from the beginning white/pink/purple

So this year the collection looked good partly because of the colour combination but also the variation in height. The tall whites really stand out best but are just a little too tasteful for me.

I’ve ordered mainly pink tulips, including don quichottes and yosemites to use to top up the rose and iris beds

Underneath the hedge the little tulip bakeri looked great, but next time I’d better start planting from the magnolia down towards the house to even things up.

This year I should have quite few tulips to combine white/pink/purple in pots and troughs – I missed them last year.