If someone were to hand me $300 and say, “Here, spend it on something nice for the house,” I know exactly what I would do: rush out and get several hundred tulip bulbs.

Actually, I’m doing this anyway, because out of all the necessary extravagances that go with home ownership — getting the gutters cleaned or the chimney swept, for example — none brings more joy than an eruption of tulips in April.

The idea of forking out the money now, spending hours planting the things and waiting through the dark months for the payoff might seem a little strange. And unlike daffodils, which reliably perennialize, most tulips tend to peter out in our soil and climate. I just regard them as an annual treat and rip them out after flowering. This compounds the lunacy, you say. Wait until April, I say. Tree blossoms provide an aerial display at that time, but tulips paint the ground and capture the enchantment of the long-awaited spring.

Besides their magic, tulips are about color and form. My favorite way to use them is to pick three or four varieties that bloom at the same time and play with color harmonies and complements. The key is to be liberal with the number of tulips you plant but conservative with the number of varieties. I plant them in blocks or broad ribbons amid clumps of perennials, then just coming into life. The scale and framing of your garden will dictate the area covered, and thus the number of bulbs, but be generous. The pros put in 12 to 15 per square foot, so a planting of 15 feet by 2 feet could easily absorb more than 350 bulbs.

If you want a show you know will work, you could create a mix of pastel colors — soft and safe and elegant. Some catalogues sell mixtures. You can also make your own. One year I assembled an assortment using single-late varieties (blooming at the back end of April) of Maureen, an ivory bloom; Pink Diamond, a medium rose pink; and Menton, a bluer pink. If I were doing it again I might add Big Smile, a clear yellow, or Dordogne, rose with yellow edges.

More recently, I planted a mix of lily-flowering varieties: Ballerina, orange-tinged rose, and Triumphator, which is white. It needed a bluish tulip in the mix, something like Purple Dream, Blue Parrot or Violet Beauty.

I asked Angela Jupe, a garden designer based in Shinrone, Ireland, what tulip combinations she liked to plant.

“I have become very fond of shades of orange, and there are some absolutely fabulous ones,” she said. One of her combinations: Cairo, deep orange suffused with copper; Cafe Noir, a dark purple; and Ballerina.

In another scheme, she mixes purple, pink and ivory with Queen of Night, a classic purple-black tulip; Zurel, white with purple streaks; Rem’s Favorite, similar but with more pronounced purple flames; and Inzell, an ivory white.

In a mixture that sounds dramatically alluring, even to those of us who shy away from red, she likes this purple-red medley: Ronaldo, red-purple; National Velvet, deep wine red; Jan Reus, a crimson red; and Abu Hassan, deep red with golden edges. The mixture is set off with the emerging foliage of peonies, hardy geraniums and other perennials.