If I’m very lucky I sometimes manage to get to Holland in April. I always come away impressed by the way Dutch gardeners use their bulbs with such panache. Yes I know it’s the land of the tulip. But they are so much more imaginative than we are with our blobs of yellow daffs, or worse still straight lines!

It was in a stylish garden in Holland that I first saw tulip ‘Purissima’ popping up through formal box beds. This full-flowered Fosteriana tulip opens white before maturing rather blowzily into palest lemon. The spring-fresh combination is one of the best – a true classic. I also saw rivers of tiny blue bulbs lining a straight rill and I have never forgotten the effect.

The Dutch approach their art with the eye of a flower arranger. They combine dusky, chequered snake’s head fritillaries (Fritillaria meleagris) with the purple-shaded orange tulip ‘Princess Irene’ raising them both to eye height in a Grecian urn. I plant my snake’s heads in a dank area of scruffy grass and they fade into obscurity – every diamond tessellation fails to shine as it could.

But perhaps the thing the Dutch are best at is exploiting the range of narcissi or daffodils. We tend to go for March madness and major on the rape-flower yellow – the brighter the better. They exploit the range, particularly the much-later whites and creams. They use Pheasant’s Eye types widely. ‘Actaea’ is more clotted cream with a yellow eye edged in red (late April) and the slightly earlier ‘Recurvus’ is a pure-white with a deep-red eye. ‘Fragrant Rose’ and ‘Audubon’ are also singles with prominent eyes. ‘Thalia’ (a Triandrus) is an elegant, multi-headed white which opens lemon-white. ‘Cheerfulness’ ( a Tazetta) is a lovely multi-headed double cream with the touch of egg-yolk yellow at its heart.

The Dutch weave them through grass, or place them in containers, or borders often with dark tulips to give an ivory and ebony blend that’s very sophisticated. These scented, simply shaped lovelies mingle among sultry tulips like the May-flowering ‘Queen of Night’ and ‘Black Horse’ and the slightly earlier ‘Paul Scherer’ and ‘Ronaldo’. It’s just about as far away from multicoloured trifle sprinkles as it’s possible to go.

They do do spangled mixtures. But theirs are refined. A mixture of cool pinks and mauves will bob about in front of blue periwinkle. Or they’ll mix two completely different pinks with a cream tulip or use a golden shimmer of red, orange and yellow.

The secret is to be bold and plant in hundreds and fifties. Although this sounds expensive, it is much cheaper on the pocket – honestly. Ten to 12 pounds will buy you 100 bulbs of one variety from a supplier like Peter Nyssen (www.peternyssen.com/0161 747 4000).

Buy in small amounts and the cost will be 60-80p per bulb – instead of 10-12p. You can also buy in tens very economically.

So this week I have been writing out my bulb order while I can still remember my failures. I will be ordering dusky fritillarias and ‘Princess Irene’, although the Grecian urn is on hold. After all we are in recession, or is it depression!