Plant tulips

Plant tulips in great drifts through the garden for your best display ever next spring. These spectacular bulbs are planted a little later to avoid tulip fire, a disfiguring fungal disease. But now it's quite safe - so stock up from the great range now on sale from our garden centre here in Co. Limerick!

Tulips look best planted by the dozen in blocks of colour winding through your borders, so give plenty of thought to the colour scheme and effect you want to create. To help you we've put together a few of our favourite combinations: mix together and scatter in swathes across the ground for a breathtaking spring spectacle.

Understated black-and-white: Deepest purple 'Queen of the Night' and ice-white 'Maureen' make for tall, late-season loveliness.

Spring yellows: The clear buttery yellow of elegantly-fluted 'West Point' is set off perfectly against equally graceful 'White Triumphator'.

Warm shades: Deep red 'Uncle Tom' glows alongside peachy pink 'Jimmy' in a combination to warm the tips of your toes.

A touch of drama: Team 'Couleur Cardinal' in scarlet flashed green and purple with near-black 'Havran' for a head-turning effect that's true theatre.

Pretty in pink: 'China Pink' and the paler 'Mariette' make a lovely feminine partnership; add green-streaked 'Greenland' for contrast.