I predict a riot of colour

With this in mind, Consumers’ Association magazine Which? Gardening has been scouring the country to ask head gardeners exactly how they achieve their show-stopping tulip displays.

In RHS Garden Harlow Carr in Harrogate, they use a combination of Tulipa “Ballerina” (orange), “Queen of Night” (dark purple) and “Jan Reus” (dark red).

Manager Alison Goding explains: “The Triumph tulip ‘Jan Reus’ starts flowering in April and is 50cm high, while ‘Queen of Night’ and ‘Ballerina’ flower in May and are 60cm high, so the overall display has more depth and lasts a bit longer.”

The tulips are in a raised bed filled with topsoil, mixed with garden compost and grit to improve drainage and bulbs are planted at a depth of three to four times the size of the bulb, 15cm apart.

If you want ideas for stunning pots of tulips, look no further than Rousham in Oxfordshire (www.rousham.org), where you can see amazing displays of majestic purple tulips, interspersed with pots of white ones. Varieties include “Jackpot” (purple with white edge), “Snowstar” (white), “Ronaldo” (stocky purple-red), “Havran” (tall dark purple) and “Ballade” (pink with white edge).

Head gardener Ann Starling says: “We empty the pots of their summer plantings then fill them with 15-25 bulbs each. The pots are sometimes put into coldframes in cold weather. If you do shelter planted-up pots in this way be careful, as you have to water them.”

Square containers work as well as round pots for tulip displays, as visitors to Easton Ruston Old Vicarage in Norfolk (www.e-ruston-oldvicaragegardens.co.uk) will find. Plant the bulbs in rows, as close as possible without the bulbs touching.

Mixed Rembrandt tulips – so called because they have similar markings to the tulips painted by the Dutch Old Masters – are planted in layers with tulip “Zurel” and “Flaming Spring Green” to make a refreshing combination.

There are many options, but grey-coloured containers are a good choice for pale tulip combinations.

If you want to naturalise your tulip bulbs, you may find inspiration from displays at Sleightholmedale Lodge on the North York Moors (www.ngs.org.uk), where you can see a mixture of Tulipa sprengeri with bluebells and cow parsley.

Garden owner Rosanna James inherited this tulip. “My mother planted a few of these tulips in the late 1940s and 50s,” she says. “After some time, she noticed that it’d spread by seed, and what you see is the result 60-70 years later.”

T. sprengeri is one of the latest tulips to flower. A native of Turkey, it thrives under a well-drained bank of deciduous trees. The bulbs are expensive, but you could try them at the edge of a gravel area.

The full report on tulips is available in the November issue of Which? Gardening magazine.