Hundreds and hundreds of fall bulbs.
I’m not a gardener. And landscaping (mostly consisting of gravel and native plants to replace the lawn) wasn’t supposed to begin until next year.
Then Neighbor J. went to Costco and went crazy. Insanity must have been contagious because I ended up committing to buy about 1/3 of the billions and billions of mega-pack bulbs she purchased.
I’m not ready for this. The dirt — which was going to be pickaxed, then artfully heaped next summer — isn’t ready for this. I’m going to be digging through grass with my itty-bitty little trowel to get these puppies under ground.
But the mid-October weather promises to be fair and favorable. So I guess I’d better get ready and get to work.
The packets consist of various alliums (including Allium Gladiator, which grows five feet tall), a selection of miscellaneous deer-resistant flowers, and a large bag of daffodil bulbs (which I didn’t buy, but which Neighbor J gifted to me when — I’m assuming here — she began to grok the reality of what she’d gone and gotten herself into).
I’m going to work with the assumption that even I can’t kill bulbs — especially daffodils, which grow around here like weeds. Wish me luck.
Not a gardener ? Fortunately you are a painter. Bring out the shovel,or rototiller, instead of a trowel. You wouldn’t use a detail paint brush on your canvas yet.Your yard is a nice size canvas, and hundreds of bulbs means nice swathes of color.Put the bulbs in the fridge while you dig.They will like the chill while you prep the canvas. Good luck!
Good luck!
You’ll thank yourself in the Spring.
Reading this brought the smell of freshly turned earth to mind.
One of the things I miss now that I live in the desert.
Good luck!
Hey, Claire, I can’t grow nuthin’ neither, but even I can grow bulb plants. That’s because all I have to do is bury ‘em a bit, and they take it from there. Automatic. You’ll have no trouble at all!
42 Flowers You Can Eat
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/04/18/42-edible-flowers.aspx
Unfortunately, daffodils are a no-no. Alliums, on the other hand…
deer-resistant flowers
Uh, yeah. I’ve heard that one before.
OMG Claire, you’re as bad as my wife. Every fall she swears no more bulbs and then the “opportunity of a lifetime” comes here way, and I’m co-opted into the manual labor of planting them. As Joel wrote, you’ll be grateful for them in the spring when everything else is still brown.
Good news. I texted a beg to The Wandering Monk, hoping against hope he’d have some time in the next few days to rescue me with his pickaxe. Bless him, he texted back to say his pickaxe was with him today in his truck and that he’d be over this afternoon.
Breaking up the ground is really the only part I was worried about. I don’t have access to a rototiller. I do have shovels, but I know exactly how miserable it is trying to break through a healthy crop of grass with one of those. The Monk just took away all the dread of this job.
Easy peasy. Just plant a row of spring crocus, and another row of fall crocus. Sit back and watch the squirrels scatter them all over, no work required. Figure a 20-35% shrinkage for the ones they plant in the neighbors yard + the ones they remember and dig back up for food.
Ouch. Get a good pad to lay on the ground to save your knees! And bourbon…that makes almost everything better. 🙂
Can’t wait for the pictures next spring of a pretty little cottage on the coast surrounded by the beauty of nature.