Tulip-lovers Anonymous, anyone? I’m addicted!

SOMEWHERE, there must be a help group for the kind of gardeners – like me – who can’t pass up the chance to buy tulips.

Already I’ve planted more than a dozen different kinds and bulb-planting season has only just got going.

Tulips are the supermodels of the flower world. Tall, slim and shapely, they are in a glamorous class of their own and, in their first season at least, are unfailingly reliable.

Plant them and they will grow. It really is that simple.

Where the real fun lies is in putting together different combinations to create either a succession of beautiful blooms or a showstopping spectacle where they all flower at once.

Getting the timing right for the latter can be tricky, but you can buy packs of mixed varieties that are more or less guaranteed to open their petals at the same time.

This year I’ve chosen a few of these but I’ve also planted lots of single varieties, such as Pretty Princess, a delicate and diminutive tulip with darker feathering on its mid-pink petals.

Both the late-flowering purple tulip, Queen of Night, and the scented orange, Ballerina, are regulars in my tulip line-up and Angelique is making a comeback, even though its peony-shaped heads can be spoiled by rain.

New this year is Carnaval de Rio, one of a series of stripy Triumph-types that have the flavour of the big top about them.

I wasn’t sure where to place this showy performer until it struck me it would do best in a pair of large containers, planted beneath a layer of evergreens and winter bedding, including cyclamen.

Elsewhere I have the pink and green Viridflora variety Virichic, Darwin types Mystik van Eijk and Ollioules and another Triumph, Page Polka.

So far I’m missing the glorious, yellow lily-flowered tulip West Point and Doll’s Minuet, which is my all-time favourite.

Neither is on sale at my local garden centre and so I’m going to have to dash off an order if I want to get hold of them.

But maybe I’ll hold off to prove to myself that I’m not in the grip of the tulip-mania which afflicted thousands of people in 17th Century Holland, many of whom lost entire fortunes in their frenzy to buy tulip bulbs, whatever the cost.

Today, that sort of obsession is really only seen among snowdrop fanciers, who become excited by minute differences in varieties.

Even after having the subtleties pointed out to me by collectors, I still can’t see what could be an improvement on the common snowdrop that carpets woodland and gardens, but then I guess most snowdrop aficionados would be baffled by my devotion to tulips.

Compared to the simplicity of the humble snowdrop, the tulip is a bit of a head-turner and I suppose that does put some people off.

But not me – I’ve always had a soft spot for a show-off.