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November is the month to plant tulips. There are few things more wonderful in this world than to cradle a tulip bulb in your hand; the rustling wispy-crispy skin and the smooth, slightly clammy flesh. Supremely organised and efficient gardeners

to have done by now. A box of tulips is sitting under my desk (along with two pairs of shoes, the overspill from the waste paper basket and a pen top whose presence I have been missing for a while). They should have been planted at least a month ago (the

.Looking at my garden this morning, however, I realised that we're a bit short of colour at this time of year. I know that within a few weeks the place will be alive with flower but right now it's a little flat.I didn't plant enough tulips last year. Right now

of colour and life; in the majority of cases this is to be welcomed. Hooray for the resurgence of tulips, whoopee for the return of the rose and yippee for the arrival of annuals.However, there are some plants which I am not looking forward to seeing again

major disaster has come to light. Due to a mix up in the bulb warehouse, a batch of tulips that should have been pure white Tulipa 'Purissima' turned out to be unidentified huge-flowered red things, which do not agree at all with the neighbouring pink

. As in potatoes, not Cabaret (“What use is chitting alone in your room? Come hear the music play....). Leave them on a windowsill and let them sprout.7. Tulip saxatalis: The earliest tulip. Very different to the rather gorgeous spring numbers I was talking about a

, every gardener needs to know a bit of botany and this book explains various things in a very entertaining fashion. The author talks about the effect humans have on such basics as the apple, the potato or the tulip. A bit of history, a bit of anecdote

:Tulipa 'Ballerina': so many tulips, almost all of them gorgeous, but as I have to choose, I'll plump for this one. Water-ice-orange, a waist like Grace Kelly and the faintest scent of velvet glove.Bupleurum longifolia: the leaves have a slight blue tinge

called Panicum 'Rehbraun', planted with Cosmos 'Dazzler' and the fabulous Tithonia rotundifolia (pictured, top) that are bushy and wonderful, but I completely forgot to plant anything for spring: no tulips, no alliums, no nothing. As a result I had

stop to our normal November gardening routine. I would usually be spending jolly weekends doing a bit of light tidying, collecting the last of the autumn leaves and planting the last of the tulip bulbs. Instead we have been shoveling snow out