May is a leafy month full of soft foliage. Using swathes of colurful tulips above the spring-green surge can lift a garden to new heights. But the technique only works when three of four excellent varieties are planted en masse.

Using lots of different colours and types of tulip is akin to sprinkling hundreds and thousands on a trifle destined for a four-year old's birthday party.

Tulips are diverse: they're subdivided into 14 sections and these vary in height and flowering time, which can range from March until mid-May. The most useful tulips follow the daffodils, rather than compete with them, so choose late-April and May-flowering varieties.

Ideally, these should be segregated from daffodils to prevent the fading narcissus foliage spoiling your tulip fiesta.

Weave your tulips through a border of late-flowering perennials and grasses, bed them out along a path, plant them in a container with pansies or fragrant wallflowers, or stud them into grass.

The big advantage of planting one tulip in 100s or 50s is cost, because buying tulips in bulk reduces the price by a sixth or more. Many varieties can be bought for between 12 and 15 pounds per 100 bulbs.

You will need to order in July and August, despite the fact that your tulip bulbs don't need planting until November. This helps to avoid disease and the rule is to plant them three times deeper than the bulb, if you can. You can either treat them as annuals, or replant every third year.

There are two types that you could choose for late-April to early May, the Darwin Hybrids and the slightly later Triumph tulips. The Darwins have enormous globular flowers held on thick stems, mostly in shades of red, yellow or orange. In the garden their chief advantage is their ability to come up year after year and they can persist for 50 years or more.

Apeldoorn' is a clear red and Golden Apeldoorn' a bright yellow.

The Triumph tulips come in a strong colours including purple and contrast well with warmly tinted Darwins. A mixture of purple Prince Charles' and the purple-edged white Shirley' works well. They do not persist like the Darwins, but they add vibrance.

The May-flowering types include the feathered-petalled Parrots, the streaky green Viridifloras, the Single and Double Late tulips and the elegant Lily-flowered tulips. Rococo' is a wonderful carmine-red Parrot and short enough (35 cm) to look good in containers. Black Parrot' , though expensive, is still the finest. The short Viridiflora Spring Green' could mingle among the dark twisted Black Parrot' petals to great effect.

Lily-flowered tulips have real style because their slender flowers have petals that arch outwards to pointed tips. I would recommend Red Shine', China Pink', White Triumphator and the clear-yellow West Point'. Large containers, with equally elegant lines, will come to life planted with a single colour tulip underplanted with small contrasting violas. If the weather's too warm manhandle your containers into shade to extend their life, because tulips flag horribly in hot weather.

Single Lates have goblet-shaped flowers and the light-yellow Mrs J. Scheepers' is superb. However her robustly large flowers may make her tricky to accommodate in smaller gardens. You may prefer the fragrant, terracotta Dillenberg', which looks particularly good with warmly coloured wallflowers. A mixed blend of Queen of Night' ( a deep velvet-maroon) and Picture' ( a lilac-rose) is always a fine sight.

The Double Lates are paeony flowered and short in stature and are best used in moderation, purely to add splashes of colour. Uncle Tom' , a lively red-maroon, could be used with pale Late Single tulips and Mount Tacoma', a pure-white, with dark mysterious late tulips.

Supplier Peter Nyssen Ltd tel 0161 747 4000 for a catalogue email - peternyssenltd@btinternet.com Extra Reading "Gardening With Tulips" by Micheal King published by Frances Lincoln @ £25.00