A common springtime complaint among gardeners is, "Where did the tulips go?" The lavish display you planted one year looked great, but it might be turning from glory to gloom as the seasons pass.

Many of the largest fluffy parrots and double-flowering May bloomers look their best in the first year, so if you want tulips to come back year after year, select bulbs with that characteristic.

Some of the most gorgeous plantings I saw on a trip to Holland used masses of Double Lates — double-flowered tulips like 'Angelique' (pink); 'Miranda' (clear red); and 'Mount Tacoma,' a white tulip — with a flurry of snowfall petals. About 10 to 13 of these planted in a garden bed or pot will put your garden right on the top of design trends. If you want cut flowers, you will have to add many more bulbs to your initial planting.

To create an interesting tulip garden, plant a few bulbs for the "wow" effect, then add bulbs that will give you five or six or even more years of pleasure.

The two keys to consistently returning tulips are the type of bulbs you select and the way they are planted. The tiny early species tulips, like white Tulip 'Tarda,' will return year after year and offer garden charm rather than impact. Growers recently have emphasized selecting tulips that persist well in gardens, and some of these are super-showy.

Many gardeners, over time, have remarked that a glossy red tulip with a black inner star comes back year after year. This one is 'Apeldoorn,' an old cultivar, a Darwin hybrid. A clump of it returned merrily for 15 years in my Capitol Hill garden until trees shaded it out. If red isn't your fave rave, try other Darwin hybrids such as 'Daydream' (soft apricot) or 'Pink Impression,' a clear watermelon shade soaring to nearly 2 feet.

Others that return well include earlier Fosteriana tulips such as 'Orange Emperor' (carrot orange) and 'Purissima' (clear white, also called 'White Emperor'). These bloom in late March, at about 18 inches tall. This year I'm also trying 'Easter Moon,' a soft yellow in the Fosteriana group.

Information

Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center: www.bulb.com

Online catalogs: www.brentandbeckysbulbs.com and www.dutchgardens.com

Choosing tulips is one part of the route to successful perennialization. The other is how they are planted and cared for, both before and after bloom.

Tulips need full sun, no stinting or pretending that part shade will do. Soil must be well-drained. Plant from mid-October to Dec. 1, at least 6-7 inches deep. Sprinkle bulb fertilizer on top after planting, water well and mulch with 2-3 inches of fluffy compost after fertilizing.

Spring care also helps their survival. Fertilize again when they are about 2 inches up. Patrol for slugs, which enjoy tender spring bulb shoots. Enjoy the flowers, then cut off the bloom when it's finished. (Harvesting them for cut flowers also is fine.)

Allow the tulip foliage to turn completely tan and crisp. Remove it only when it lifts easily out of the ground. Now comes the tricky part: The tulips will be totally dormant through summer and do best if they are kept dry until fall. One reason the normally perennial types like Fosteriana and Darwin Hybrids die out is that they are exposed to more moisture than they want in summer. Their ancestors, in the hot Atlas Mountains, had plenty of spring moisture and total summer drought.

Choose your planting space to accomplish the summer-dry. Waterwise shrub borders with mugo pines and blue oat grass work well. Some gardeners set the tulips in plastic pots (with good drain holes), submerge them in fall and then pull them out to dry away from the watered garden in summer. Experiment with choices and planting techniques, and you'll find that tulips rejoin your garden, year after year.

Garden expert Mary Robson, retired area horticulture agent for Washington State University/King County Cooperative Extension, shares gardening tips every Wednesday. Her e-mail is marysophia@earthlink.net.