FLOWER POWER; A RIOT OF COLOR BLAZES AT DESCANSO GARDENS.

Byline: Marilee Reyes

It's time to dig down into the back of the closet and drag out your wooden clogs: Tulip Mania is bursting into color at Descanso Gardens.

It's like a little bit of Holland for this annual, monthlong celebration of tulips and other spectacular spring flowers. The garden grounds are aflame with millions of blossoms, but the jewels of the display are the 20,000 tulips planted especially for the event. Other flowers that will be in full bloom include daffodils, lilies and hyacinths.

The celebration includes music, dancers, walks, talks, flower shows and plant sales.

Visitors may stroll through the Tulip Promenade, which features 61 varieties of tulips placed in groupings of 200 each, flowering in a palette of spring colors. Look for the flamboyant Parrot series, Darwin hybrids, and the unique fringed tulips.

Not to be slighted, the Van de Kamp Courtyard will be a riot of color with hyacinth, anemones, Dutch irises, pansies, violas and primroses.

The event includes a rare appearance on Tuesday by Penelope Hobhouse, the renowned English garden designer, author and lecturer. She will discuss ``The Art and Practice of Gardening'' at 7:30 p.m. in Van de Kamp Hall. Tickets are $25.

THE FACTS

The show: Tulip Mania.

Where: Descanso Gardens, 1418 Descanso Drive, La Canada Flintridge.

When: Open daily 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. today through April 18.

Admission: Adults $5; seniors and students $3; ages 5-15 $1; younger than 5 free. Parking is free.

Information: [phone].

How to be a cheating heart

Wish you had a forest of tulips in your garden by now, but you forgot to plant the bulbs last fall?

It's time to cheat.

Yes, cheating is allowed and encouraged. Ask the folks at the Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center, who told us that even the most diligently pure-of-heart gardeners have been known to cheat about tulips.

And it's so easy: Just buy the prepotted bulbs from your local nursery or garden center market or florist - and plant them into your own garden. It will look like you grew them.

Does this feel naughty? As naughty as nibbling away at Dutch chocolate? Just think of the rewards: Imagine how surprised your neighbors will be when they look out their window and see tulips nodding their pretty heads in your garden. It's as if they appeared overnight! (They did.)

Don't limit yourself to tulips. Try the blooming, prepotted daffodils, crocus and hyacinth, too. Think of them as costume jewelry for your yard.

Here are some suggestions for replanting the blooming bulb flowers outdoors:

Dig a hole into rich, well-drained soil.

Tip the pot and gently remove the plant, keeping its soil intact around the root ball.

Set into the soil. Or, set several prepotted flowers into a large planter, for a bouquet effect.

Water well.

Remember, if one set of bulb flowers looks great, imagine how several will look. Keep them all one color, or mix them up. For a designer look, consider a succession of blooms that will start with pink tulips, move to blue grape hyacinths and end with yellow daffodils.

For the longest bloom time, select potted bulbs with shoots and fully formed buds that are not yet flowering, advises Franz Roozen, technical director of the International Flower Bulb Center in Hillegom, the Netherlands.

- Marilee Reyes

Never put off until tomorrow any bulbs you can plant today

When it comes to planting flowers that bloom from bulbs, here's a bright idea: Don't procrastinate.

January is the best time to get tulip bulbs in the ground to maximize their bloom time through April.

``Usually, when you see it in a botanical garden, it's too late to plant it for that year,'' said Brian Sullivan, display gardener at Descanso Gardens, who coddled 16,000 tulip bulbs through the winter and set them into the ground in January.

But now, when the tulips are blooming, is a perfect time to sample their color and fragrance, jot down names and varieties, and plan next year's planting.

``You do your wish list in the spring so you know what you want to plant next year,'' Sullivan said.

Tulip bulbs are available in the fall in most local home and garden centers, and more varieties are available by mail-order. They're usually shipped to California gardeners in late September, but should be stored in the refrigerator until January.

``You have to trick them into thinking they've been through a winter, then you plant them,'' Sullivan said.

In the East and the Midwest, where winters can be brutal, gardeners usually dig up their tulip bulbs and replant them again when the ground thaws. But in California, the bulbs can be left in the ground, getting just enough of a chill to stimulate growth in the spring. In fact, tulips will get stronger and more beautiful every year for about five years; then it's time to discard them and plant new bulbs.

When you buy tulip bulbs, make sure you check the label to see whether your flowers will be early flowering (starting about March 1), midseason flowering (from late March or early April), or late-flowering (about the third week in April), Sullivan advises. If you plant some of each variety, you can extend the color in your garden for more than two months.

If you already have some bulbs that you never got around to planting, don't throw them out. Store them in a cool, well-ventilated area until late fall. Then, along with any new bulbs you've bought, transfer the old bulbs into the fridge for the cooling process, and put them all in the ground in January. They'll still perform for you.

But once tulips have bloomed, don't expect them to reflower, like roses or petunias, which keep blooming if you remove dead flowers.

``Tulips bloom once,'' Sullivan said, ``and that's it until next year. You don't have long to enjoy them.''

- Carol Bidwell

CAPTION(S):

5 Photos, 2 Boxes, Map

Photo: (1--Cover--Color) Bulbs in bloom

Descanso Gardens begins celebration of the monthlong Tulip Mania festival

(2--Color) Colorful tulips are plentiful on the grounds of Descanso Gardens

during Tulip Mania, which continues through April 18.

(3--Color) Daffodils and winter daisies bloom in a wheelbarrow.

(4--Color) Rows of red pansies and yellow calendulas stretch out in a windmill garden.

John McCoy/Daily News

(5--Color) Even the most pure-of-heart gardeners take shortcuts in the interests of instant gratification.

Box: (1) How to be a cheating heart (See text)

(2) Never put off until tomorrow any bulbs you can plant today (See text)

Map: Descanso Gardens - La Canada Flintridge