Spring is not just a promise when you're holding a handful of tulip bulbs: it's a bright and colorful guarantee. Each tulip bulb contains the germ of at least one cheerful flower. Planting them now, in the fall, sets your garden up for a lovely springtime display of flowers.

Big public displays of tulips often involve sweeping mass plantings of a single tulip variety. Such a bold splash of color will certainly stop traffic, but tulips are versatile flowers and there are many ways to use them in gardens of any size or style. They're graceful, stately performers within the clipped hedges of a formal garden, they add style to cottage gardens, and they bring a winter-weary perennial garden to life. They're handsome companions for evergreen and spring-blooming shrubs. In pots, they put spring color at your fingertips.

"They're amongst my favorite spring-flowering bulbs," says Jacqueline van der Kloet, a Dutch garden designer whose expert eye for tulips in combination with other plants can be enjoyed in the planting designs at the Lurie Garden in Chicago's Millennium Park, in the Battery Gardens in Manhattan, and at New York Botanical Garden. She is inspired by the colors, shapes, heights, and flowering times of tulips, she says, and "it has become a game for me to keep coming up with new combinations." Her book, "A Year in My Garden," explores many of her favorites.

It can indeed be hard to choose. Officially, there are more than 3,000 tulip varieties (classified into 15 different types), from tiny, wispy species flowers to big doubles that look almost like peonies. Bulb specialists narrow down the selection for their customers, but they still list dozens of tulips in their catalogs every fall, alongside daffodils, hyacinths, crocus, and other bulbs. It's a dizzying selection, but choosing will be easier if you give some thought in advance to what colors you like, when in the course of the spring you want your tulips to bloom, and how tall they should be. If you choose a range of tulips with early, mid-, and late-season bloom times, you can expect tulips to be in bloom in your garden for a month or more. If you're going for a really bold show of color, you might stick to mid-season Darwin and Triumph tulips: you're still likely to have blooms for up to two weeks.

Catalogs such as Colorblends make it easy to be an expert tulip gardener. Tim Schipper, the owner, and his team experiment with combinations of different tulip varieties and offer tried-and-true blends so gardeners -- and landscape designers -- get it right the first time. They have worked with Jacqueline van der Kloet on designs for the bulb display in the Colorblends spring garden in Connecticut. A blend called Pillowtalk, made for romance, combines pink and creamy yellow tulips. If you prefer your colors on the brighter side, go for fearless combinations such as Critical Mass, which the Colorblends team describes as a "chain reaction of yellow, purplish pink, and maroon."

Coming up with tulip blends "is a little like mixing chemicals," the Colorblends experts say. "Get it wrong and nothing happens, or maybe too much. Get it right and the colors seem to feed off each other."

No matter which tulips you choose, they all need the same conditions and care. Fall is the time to plant them, when daytime temperatures are reliably cool and the soil is cool, too. Plant tulip bulbs in a spot where their foliage will receive lots of sun in the springtime, and also where the soil drains well. They need water to grow and flourish, but not too much: tulip bulbs are dormant during the summer, and automatic irrigation systems can cause them to rot.

Van der Kloet recommends planting tulip bulbs at least six inches deep; a good rule of thumb for tulips and other bulbs is to plant the bulb at least three times as deep as the bulb is tall. Firm the soil over the planting area and water well. A mulch of crushed autumn leaves looks tidy and insulates the soil.

After you have planted and watered your tulip bulbs, you've done your bit. The bulbs begin to put down roots right away, but you won't see a thing in the garden until early spring, when shoots begin to poke up through the soil. The handsome foliage is itself wonderfully encouraging after a long winter, and within weeks, you'll notice flower buds, which will soon show a hint of color. Sunshine encourages them to open, slowly at first and then with a flourish. Cool temperatures and spring rains refresh the tulip flowers and prolong their bloom. It is a pleasant time to be out in the garden, and you will find yourself admiring each and every glorious bloom.

SIDEBAR

Tulip Time

-- You can't plant too many tulips. Classic, dependable tulip bulbs cost less than 50 cents each (you can buy 100 for about $35 or $40), and with 100 bulbs, you can make a big impact.

-- In perennial gardens, tuck tulip bulbs into spaces between plants, making room for three, five, or even just one tulip bulb in each space. The effect, with flowers blooming through the length of the flower bed, is something like a wildflower meadow. Planting bulbs close together looks great, too -- like a flying carpet of color.

-- Darwin hybrid tulips and lily-flowered tulips are known for their ability to come back and bloom for several years. Many other tulips will return to bloom for a few years, also, but the first year is always the best. Little species tulips, which look great along the edge of a flower bed, can be excellent perennializers.

-- Deer are particularly fond of tulip flower buds. If deer are a problem in your garden, you'll need to spray tulip buds in spring with a deer repellant. Don't wait until the deer discover them: spraying is a preventative measure. Planting tulip bulbs in pots on the porch may keep them out of reach of the deer.

-- Plant tulip bulbs where you'll be able to watch them come into bloom from the windows of your house. Plant some out front, too: the neighbors will notice.

SOURCES

-- Excellent sources for tulip bulbs include: Colorblends (colorblends.com), Brent and Becky's Bulbs (brentandbeckysbulbs.com), and John Scheepers (johnscheepers.com).

-- Jacqueline van der Kloet (theetuin.nl) is an internationally known garden designer and the author of "A Year in My Garden" and 10 other garden design and nature books. Her business, Thee Tuin (The Tea Garden), in Weesp, near Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is open year round.

There's no need to defend your turf: A carpet of lawn -- even if it includes clover, violets and a smattering of dandelions -- is a beautiful, time-honored tradition, sweeping back to the age of village greens. For lots of people, lawns are all there is to gardening. But lawns are also the gentle background to the angles and architecture in our residential landscapes, the soothing green swath around a home. Patches of lawn knit our neighborhoods together. They frame our flower gardens and give kids a place to play.

"There is something about our vision of home -- lawn is attached to that," says Chrysanthe Broikos, a curator at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., where a gigantic indoor lawn of artificial turf was the centerpiece of the museum's summer installation. "Developers are putting more homes on less land," she says. "People are willing to have a smaller lawn, but they still want a piece of it."

Working with the Rockwell Group's LAB, a professional architecture and design studio, the museum created a lawn that became much more than a great expanse of grass. Hammocks and deck chairs were scattered everywhere. Virtual fireflies lit the scene at night. Crickets chirped in the soundtrack, and the bell of an ice cream truck could be heard in the distance, along with the gentle roar of lawn mowers. Visitors felt right at home, says Cathy Frankel, the museum's vice president of exhibitions and collections. She was pleased to see kids rolling in the grass: It seemed to come naturally. A lawn is "a place to take your shoes off, relax and create memories," she says, and visitors took the exhibit's cues without hesitation -- they spread picnic blankets, played lawn games and simply hung out.

Lawns are big business. Americans spend billions of dollars every year on lawn care -- including the cost of buying and maintaining lawn mowers and investing in seed, sod, hoses, sprinklers, irrigation systems, fertilizers and pesticides. The average lawn takes up 20% to 30% of most home lots, says Ben Hamza, director of technical operations at TruGreen, a national lawn care company.

If you mow your lawn yourself, you're probably committed to doing the job once a week during the gardening season, and if you pay someone else to do it, you're probably paying $30 to $80 or more, according to lawn research data for 2019. "The desire to maintain a healthy outdoor living space has not changed" over the years, Hamza says, "but more people are busy, and they don't have the time or knowledge to take care of their grass. More people are looking for help."

Neighborhood teenagers who cut the grass for pocket money are a vanishing breed: They're being replaced by pros. About 100,000 landscaping companies mow and maintain residential lawns across the country, and the industry is growing. TruGreen handles lawn, tree and shrub care for about two million residential customers in the U.S. and Canada.

Healthy turf is the best defense against lawn problems, Hamza says. A healthy lawn out-competes weeds, helps control erosion on your property and limits runoff into overburdened storm drains. Proper mowing -- don't scalp your lawn -- encourages grasses to put down a deep and thriving root system that doesn't demand constant watering and tolerates droughts with ease.

Lawn-care customers wish to be good stewards of the environment, Hamza says. They want environmentally safe and sustainable solutions to the challenges of maintaining a good-looking lawn. Protecting pollinators, including bees, is a priority, Hamza says, and, when pesticides are called for, customers expect lawn professionals to use them responsibly and with discretion. Lawn care products should also be safe for people, as well as for pets.

It takes time, effort and an investment for a lawn to thrive, but the consensus is obviously that it's worth the effort. A lawn doesn't have to be very big, and it doesn't need to be as meticulously groomed as a golf-course fairway. And it always works: Large or small, front or back, secluded or wide open, lawns never go out of style.

Sources

-- Your local university extension office, and master gardeners who volunteer for extension services, are great sources of information about lawn care in your area. Search for "lawn care" and "extension" and your state to find advice, bulletins, lawn care calendars and more.

-- TruGreen is a national, professional lawn care company. For lawn care basics and more information, see trugreen.com.

-- The National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., is a museum of architecture, engineering and design. The summer exhibit Lawn, and other exhibits at the museum, explore our relationships to our homes and to the landscape. For more information, visit nbm.org.

Herbs are essential garden plants, as pretty as they are useful, so when you're choosing herbs for your garden, don't just think about taste -- remember color, fragrance, and texture, and give herbs plenty of room in your garden plans.

There's an herb for every recipe, but really no recipe for an herb garden -- the important thing is to grow what you like and to find places and ways for herbs to thrive. An herb garden might include old-fashioned roses for rose-petal jam or tea, lemongrass to freshen up Asian recipes, or sesame plants for your baking. You might grow a row of tall, cheerful sunflowers and harvest seeds both for yourself and for the birds. You don't even need to do any digging: Simply place a pot of rosemary on the back stairs where you will enjoy its fragrance as you come and go.

The choice of plants for herb gardens "is wide open," says Gayle Engels, special projects director of the American Botanical Council, which specializes in herbal medicine information but promotes herbs and herb gardening widely. Herbs from around the world flourish in 25 medicinal and culinary herb gardens at the ABC's headquarters in Austin, Texas. The demonstration gardens are pretty, but they have a purpose. The goal is to inspire herb growing and suggest new ways to use herbs.

Engels doesn't have a handy list of recommended herbs for everyone. It "depends on the individual and what they want," she says. Many herbs are beautiful and versatile: Engels loves calendulas for their bright petals, which are dazzling in a salad. They're certainly appropriate in a culinary garden, but they're also grown for their medicinal uses: Engels makes a soothing skin oil from calendula petals and almond oil. Mint also works hard in both culinary and medicinal herb gardens -- it is a classic herb for summer drinks and salads, but a big bundle of mint leaves can also be used to make a first-rate soaking solution for tired feet, Engels says.

Most herbs grow best in a sunny spot. "It doesn't have to be the best soil ever," Engels says, as long as it drains well. Many annual herbs -- parsley, basil, cilantro, dill and others -- flourish in summer's heat, and do not need pampering to grow and thrive. Perennial herbs -- sage, oregano, thyme, lavender, mint, chives and others -- are also easy to grow, and they benefit from pruning and harvesting.

Experience is an excellent teacher, Engels says. You'll learn by doing, and by persevering. If you've been trying to grow an herb that doesn't seem to thrive for you, try moving it to a different spot. In the AHC gardens in Texas, if an herb still doesn't do well after a couple of moves, they replace it with a plant that prefers their climate's hot, dry conditions.

You don't need 40 acres and a tractor to have a successful herb garden. A large flowerpot will serve for several parsley, basil and dill plants. Plant labels may recommend generous spacing, but when you're harvesting regularly, it's all right to crowd herbs close together. Many herbs grow well alongside ornamental plants; try planting zinnias in with dill or basil, for example, or grow a border of parsley, chives or lavender around a flower bed. Remember, many common garden flowers -- daylilies, dianthus, pansies, nasturtiums -- are traditional herb-garden plants, too.

These days, gardeners are expanding their herb selections to include spices commonly used in Indian, Middle Eastern and Vietnamese recipes, Engels says. It is easy to give them a try, either by planting seeds, getting cuttings from friends or buying transplants. "Push the envelope. Try new things," she says. "It's more of an art than a science."

Engels teaches herb-gardening classes, and she says her students are also looking for new ways to use familiar herbs. Lots of gardeners ask her about herbal teas, about infusions and elixirs made with herbs, and about the benefits of herbs for pollinators. The flowers of many herbs, including dill and fennel, attract butterflies to the garden, and their leaves and flowers are a source of food for the caterpillars. It can be disconcerting to discover caterpillars eating your parsley, so plant enough to share, she suggests -- vegetable gardens are even more productive when there's a thriving pollinator population in and around your garden.

Herb gardens have their roots deep in the past, but they're full of modern-day adventure, Engels says. They're rich in the fragrance, flavors and cultures of faraway places. No matter where they come from, you can enjoy them to the fullest in an herb garden right in your own back yard.

SOURCES

-- The American Botanical Council is a great source of information about herbs of all kinds. The Council specializes in herbal medicine information and supports sustainable gardening. The Council's headquarters in Austin, Texas, is open for tours. For information, abc.herbalgram.org.

-- The Herb Society of America is another excellent source of information promoting the "knowledge, use, and delight" of herbs. For information, herbsociety.org.