It is an ideal time for standing back and contemplating your next gardening moves, and one of these should be planting an extravagance of tulips and ornamental onions (otherwise known as Alliums).

And the good news is that it's not too late, even if you don't get around to it until the end of this month. Tulips are one of the great wonders of the plant world, capable of setting the tone of a place for literally months on end.

Having lingered long in a kind of Limbo for the last few decades, tulips are once again firmly fixed in the firmanent of high fashion, where they rightly belong.

What other plants do you know that will give you such gorgeous, painterly flowers from March to mid-June?

The other great thing about them is that you don't need a garden to achieve dazzling, showstopping effects.

Like the writer and broadcaster Helen Dillon now does in her now famous Ranelagh garden (open to the public in March), you could even grow a dolly mixture assortment, massed in several aluminium ashbins.

Unless you settle for growing only the tall cottage types and some of the botanical species, you must accept (though not if you have a fulltime gardener or the finest sandy free- draining ground to keep them going) that most other tulips are really only good for one season and have to be replaced every year.

Hurry out and buy some, while stocks last.

Tulips to mix and match So far this season, I've bought large numbers of different tulips, including an assortment that worked very well together in previous years.

Though they were planted in two quite small borders in a courtyard garden, they did not clash.

This year, to give the same borders a rest and enable me to overhaul them during winter, I'm planting all my town tulips in containers.

The successful assortment consists of the following: the neat, glossy, upright and bestselling 'Queen of Night'; the very pretty double late 'Angelique'; the lily-flowered trio of 'Elegant Lady', 'Burgundy' and 'White Elegance';

and a trio of parrots, 'Blue Parrot', 'Black Parrot' and 'White Parrot'.

I've also bought lots more for other places, some of which I can heartily recommend. They include the excellent viridiflora tulips known as 'Spring Green' and 'Groenland', which flower fetchingly at the same time as the wild white and the pale pink cow-parsley in my front garden and comes up well for a second year if left untouched in well-drained ground.

For big pots I've bought masses of the supremely elegant old variety, 'China Pink'.

For planting in front of a dark yew hedge, I've got the sensational, red and white parrot called 'Estelle Rijnveld', which has large flowers striped liked raspberry-ripple ice cream.

For growing in pots against a ground cover of blue forget-me-nots, there is the cheerful yellow lily-flowered variety, 'West Point'.

Another tulip I can heartily recommend is the lily-flowered 'White Triumphator', which are tall, elegant and actually a glowing white.

They can sometimes increase over the years if happy, which is a real bonus for your garden and they look very striking when massed in handsome clay pots.

And for no other reason than 'it shines with the dusky splendour of old wine', I've acquired some bulbs of the hard to come by 'Couleur Cardinal', from Mr Middleton's of Mary Street in Dublin.

When planting tulips, always remember they insist on good drainage and some sun, so please don't let them be planted in sticky, unworkable clay.

If in doubt, you can incorporate plenty of sand or grit and some dried seaweed or bonemeal at planting time.

You should also remember too, that the tuilip's foliage can become messy after flowering. This will need to be disguised. This should not prove a problem to you if you opt to pull them out immediately.

Honest smelling wallflowers, which you can buy in bunches now, and sweet forget-me-nots are the traditional companions for tulips and adept at disguising their dying foliage.

GARDEN WORK >> Rearrange your pots outside, tucking those that are spent or unsightly out of the way and dragging anything presentable out into the limelight, where they can be seen from the windows of the house. It's always a good idea to have a few evergreens, including ivies underplanted with early bulbs, permanently in pots for this very purpose WHAT'S ON 'New Places, New Ideas & New Magic' is a lecture by the urbane, witty and well-travelled writer and broadcaster, Stephen Lacey, organised jointly by the National Botanic Gardens and the Irish Garden Plant Society (IGPS).

Thursday 7 December, 8pm, at the Botanics. Tickets 10, including wine, from the IGPS, c/o the Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin 9.

HOW TO. . .

. . . lay a turf lawn, bejewelled with early species crocuses Crocus tommasinianus is lovely, reliable and spreads by seed.

Plus its leaves are so "ne that they disappear into the sward soon after "owering. There's still time to lay a lawn, big or small, with roll-out turf (though too late now to sow one from seed, which is much cheaper).

The turf arrives in squares or more usually in strips, rolled up like stair carpet. Rake the soil level "rst, and remove any stones larger than a marble, and all weeds. If going for the jewelled effect . . . and I think you should . . .

then you place the small bulbs on the bare ground and cover with the grass.

It is very important when laying strips and turves that you pack their edges tightly side by side, not quite but almost overlapping, so that they can knit together seamlessly, as they always shrink a little and will pull apart if you don't allow for this.

Water if the weather is dry and avoid walking on it until rooted, especially if you have put down bulbs as well.