Is it a sign of the times that we have such hot Easters now? For the last few years it seems as if we have had such a glorious spells of beautiful blue skies and warming sunshine at the end of March and the beginning of April. I adore it. The tulips do not. 

Even though there are meant to be early, mid and late tulips and, in theory, you can stagger your varieties to get three months or so of these exquisite flowers with a bit of indoor and outdoor cleverness, my tulips are pretty much over. The hot weather meant they came on so quickly, sending up blooms from short stems, and they all pretty much flowered at once. A short, but abundant, season. 

And so I find myself, not even at the end of April, reviewing my choices for this year. I do not believe in regrets, but I do believe in learning lessons only once, and every year I fail with this one. My mantra for tulips buying is borrowed from Arthur Parkinson, stained glass colours only. And yet, yet again, I bought pink. (I get seduced by this, every single year, and Mystik van Eijk came highly recommended by Polly Nicholson, one of her top three.) And the Ronaldos were incredible, and I picked them by the absolute armful, but they are more purple than red. 

 I did come round to the Mystik van Eijk in the end because their texture was so incredible, that true Dutch sort of veining, but I am determined to get it right next year. So for me, and for you, this is the day to get a notebook out and write a missive to your future self. If you want the top pick of varieties, you do have to order earlier than expected, as soon as the dahlia orderbooks are closed. 

One thing I do not need to make a note to remember is how utterly gorgeous and perfect the Dom Pedros are. Absolutely everything I hoped for, sultry, deep deep coppery red. In my quest to create a flower farm that grows only brown flowers, it is definitely top of my list. 

 And so, Ronaldo is definitely off my list, and these ones going on my list:

• More Dom Pedro, more more more

• One not tried yet but coming highly recommended from a Gather member, Bigi Brasa from Peter Nyssen. Although you cannot order at the moment, Peter Nyssen keep their tulip catalogue up all year round, which is helpful for this list making stage

• Absalon – combining all the wonderful tones of Dom Pedro and the glamour of a broken tulip, these are just gorgeous

If a flower has the word ‘chocolate’ in its description, I am there. See also Windsor sweet peas and Akebia. So Palmyra tulips were an easy sell. It is so hard to judge colour from photographs on a screen and I do fear that they will turn out to be purple after all, but I am going to give these big, double peony-type ones a go. Oh, and if I hadn’t sworn off pink and onto the rich, jewel, stained glass colours, I would definitely be looking at branching into the apricots. So much softer and more gorgeous than the sugar pinks, they can do magic things to a lighter palette.

Of course, there is always the option to just go monochrome, like South Wood Farm… 

Other gorgeous tulip reading:

• Start with the interview with Polly Nicholson, worth hanging on every word, and exquisite photography

• Last year’s tulip review - a clear month later than this post. This is the future of climate change…

• If you have tulips still fresh and young, then they do dry beautifully. I dried some brownie tulips and Dean Hearne loved them so much, they made it into my book. I thought I had written a how to about it, but it turns out it was about dahlias instead, but the principles are exactly the same. Read all about it here, and then start hanging your favourite tulips in airy places.