Steam & Fall Planted Bulbs

Morning Ice on Sedum

Steam and fall bulb planting? What could possibly be the connection...?

Think about it for a moment and I bet you'll land on the logical answer.

Early morning view, from my deck. Snow remains in the higher elevations, melts in my garden as the sun rises.

The landscape glistens with the reds and golds of late autumn but that is not what I was thinking about when I shot this photo. I was half-heartedly hoping those grey clouds slithering over the highest peaks would turn this into a rainy day.

Back to steam and fall bulb planting. Give up? Oh, come on! I just gave you a great hint!

It's about me running out of steam...

Been playing in the mud for 6 fun months but the weather is changing, now, and so is my burning desire to dig more holes.

Only this year, I premeditated lazy. Ordered bulbs early. Ordered a lot. They're here and there's no point in whining. Somebody's gotta plant them & I suppose that somebody will be me.

Today's chore includes a truckload (well, not really, but it feels like it) of:
* Grape Hyacinths
* Pheasant Eye Daffodils
* Red Devon Daffodils

And! Vuurbaak! These glorious red, rare, bordering on gaudy but that's a good thing heirloom Hyacinths are goodies I purchased from Old House Gardens. I love that joint. (They did not pay me to give 'em a plug, though I'm just shameless enough I would probably work for bulbs...)

Why red? Because everybody else will be planting purple, that's why.

Fun Facts to Know & Tell!

- Heirloom Hyacinths are an endangered bulb.
- They come in all sorts of spectacular colors.
Plus, they have a lovely fragrance ~ much nicer than the purple, pink, white hybrids big retailers sell.

I buy from big retailers, too. I'd need to win the lottery before I could fill my entire garden with heirloom bulbs. In addition to those bargain bulbs I like to support the cause and purchase a few heirloom bulbs to brag about.

Last year I planted Gipsy Queens (I did not spell that wrong. The plant owner did.) A luscious apricot Hyacinth. Here's hoping Ms. Vuurbaak is just as delightful.

Vuurbaak Hyacinth: Man, with a name like that she has to be a legit heirloom. Been around since 1948.

Gipsy Queen, my apricot beauty from last year was born in 1927.

* When I say 'born' think of it as the original Hyacinth bulb is Great, Great Grandma and the bulbs with the same name we buy right now are members of a proud, authentic lineage who have not been putzed with or futzed with in any way, shape or color.
** Because heirlooms flower bulbs naturally create offspring - new bulbs (clones?) each year.

Click here to discover why heirloom bulbs are so wonderful.

40 Days and 40 Nights

I don't care what the calendar says. This first Columbine bloom of the season is the official start to my summer.

Oh, thank God! I thought to myself ~ as I peered out the kitchen window at bright sunshine. A glimmer of hope in this grey, dreary, overly saturated spring.

More first blossoms: Johnson's Blue Geranium peeks out from behind lush foliage.

My joy was short-lived. The coffee hadn't finished brewing when dark clouds blocked out the happy sun and another deluge was upon us.

It's a toss up, I suppose. The scent of fresh Lilacs is intoxicating but the cheery pink blossoms of Flowering Almond are pretty irresistible, too.

I guess it really didn't matter if it rained this weekend ~ which it did, as it has done for as long as I can remember.* And, will do for as long as Google can predict.

Because I was stuck behind closed doors in what could easily go down in history as the most depressing sales meeting I have ever attended.

And, I'm not even in sales.

So, just imagine how the sales reps felt.

Alliums standing tall
(Haze, if you're reading this, these are the ones I thought were tulips when you were visiting! Dang. I can't get anything right.

As a freelancer, I work with all sorts of companies. Some are sweet. Some are mean. This company is by far the hardest ~ for the most childish of reasons. They don't like me. They really don't! I don't know why they don't like me. I'm kind of nice...

Mom's Wild Roses are going hog wild.

As I sat there for hours and hours and hours, I tried to earn my keep by offering up [what I thought was] one good idea after another. They kept looking at me like I was the village idiot. At one point I actually went into the ladies room and sort of sniffed my shirt to see if, perhaps, I smelled really bad or something.

Non-stop Tulip action: Heirlooms that (apparently) bloom forever.

So, I'd toss out an idea and feel like a fool. Minutes later some fellow in the room would take my idea and repeat it to the crowd. Then everyone would smile and say... Oh, that's good... Huh? I dunno, seems hard to believe that in this day and age I could be considered 'a dumb girl.' But, maybe so. The good news is I survived and I guess that counts for something. Hopefully something more than a bruised self-esteem.

* Admittedly I don't have a great long-term memory. Or even a pretty good short-term memory. But, I do believe this is the rainiest damn spring I've ever seen.

However! This deep drenching has inspired pretty much every flower in my garden to get with the program.

The Case for Heirloom Bulbs

Powerscourt Gardens, near Dublin, Ireland. I took this photo 20 years ago and I'll bet younger generations of this same Tulip bulb are still blooming.

"Your bulb order is heading to the barn and from there it will be shipped."

I got all warm and fuzzy when I heard my bulbs were heading to the barn. I hoped there were horses in that barn. Maybe even a cow, or two.

How cool would that be if it was a real barn and my bulbs were resting on a big wooden table instead of bouncing down an automated conveyor belt and into a box?

Whatever the case, that barn comment stopped my bitchiness dead in it's tracks. I called to demand where my order was. Mountain snows are just around the corner. I'd like to dig up a little more dirt before that happens.

When my precious bulbs finally arrived I stood at the fence and proudly showed off my purchase to my neighbor. She stared at me in disbelief. How can you possibly have a Hyacinth bulb from 1863?

Then I showed them to my daughter who laughed out loud and promptly asked to borrow some money.

I walked out to the garden shaking my head. Must everything require education?

I mean... really. How could my own daughter be so dumb as to think I'd loan her money after she mocked my gardening passion?

It makes perfect sense to me why we're confused by heirloom bulbs. It's because we've grown up gardening with hybrid bulbs.

Hybrid bulbs are cheap! So, we buy a bunch of them. They don't last very long. So, we go buy some more!

Hybrid bulbs don't reproduce.
Most flower for a few years. Soon their flowering power dwindles or they stop flowering altogether.

Heirloom bulbs eagerly reproduce.
These bulbs split in two. So 10 bulbs quickly become 20 and soon you have a garden filled with pretty spring flowers. They're tough, they last forever. In the long run they're less expensive than hybrids.

Most importantly, heirloom bulbs, like heirloom tomatoes, got voted off the island by big stores simply because they weren't as profitable. Now you know how much you love a good heirloom tomato. Imagine how exciting an heirloom Hyacinth could be.

Long live the MasterCard! Here's my bulb order:

1. Grand Monarque Hyacinth, born 1863
2. Purple-Headed Garlic Allium, born 1766
3. Marjolettii Tulip, born 1894
4. Rip Van Winkle Daffodil, born 1884
5. Spanish Bluebell, born 1906
6. Gipsy Queen Hyacinth, born 1927
7. Princeps Daffodil, born 1830
8. Orange Phoenix Eggs and Bacon Daffodil, born 1731
9. Estella Rijnveld Parrot Tulip, born 1954 ~ which is probably not truly an heirloom. Unless we can call Wunx an heirloom, too. (What say you to that Wunx? :))

Heirloom Bulbs & Indian Summer

"All is perfectly still, as if Nature, after her exertions during Summer, were now at rest." - John Bradbury, 1817

High in the mountains, we're quietly savoring our 'second summer.' Those warm, peaceful days that come right after Mother Nature has frozen all of my tomatoes.

Last year, these lazy autumn days lingered into late November. It was so nice for so long, it charmed my honeysuckle vines into a second flowering.

So, I've been dragging my feet on fall planting, thinking I've got all the time in the world. Plus, I was saving up my energy 'cause I'm going hog wild on bulbs this year.

Rather, I was planning to go hog wild. It just never occurred to me that bulb companies weren't patiently waiting for my order!

I'm not usually this emotional but I literally shed a tear when I saw that the Old House Gardens Cafe Brun Tulip was sold out.

They'll probably sue me for showing these photos, but a picture is worth way more than a thousand of my words.

In spite of sold out signs on the bulbs I really wanted, I still found a few goodies...

Allium, Camassia and this pretty cool tulip. I'll probably have to tether the cat next to these tulip bulbs 24/7 so the critters can't eat them.

Daffodils that hopefully will naturalize like crazy, making many more Daffies, in the years to come...
I'm fond of the Old Bulb gals because it feels like I'm buying bulbs from a neighbor.

This young lady will surely die but I just couldn't resist. I am a sucker for perennial Cyclamen.

* Just in case you're wondering, the answer is no. They did not pay me a dime or offer me a bulb for yakking about them. I just really like the company. (Now, if only they'd build a better website... ;-)