Patriotic witch and spook and bulbs

Witch and spook at front

Besides the approach of Halloween, trick or treat, and decorating outside for the goblin greetings,  this is the time of year when I think about planting bulbs.  We are ready for the parade of kids tomorrow evening as are Witch and Spook who have been languishing in the closet for a few years while we traveled.  Jerry has so securely attached the patriotic stars to the front railing that he opted not to remove them but secure Witch and Spook alongside giving a patriotic theme to Halloween here.    If you look closely at that photo you can see a reflection in the front door of a pine tree from across the street.  I have my witch hat ready for tomorrow when I answer the door.

When we lived in CA, I started a tradition of planting bulbs daffodils, Dutch  iris, narcissus, muscari, anemones, hyacinths and more every year for my birthday.  Some years I might  plant 100 bulbs some years  less, but always enough so that I spent four  hours or more digging and burying.  I gave up planting  tulips because I  never  got the joy of tulips flowering in the spring, they provided excellent meals for the voles, moles and gophers rampant over our acreage in Newcastle.  They even chewed through  wire mesh which I had  planted in the ground to protect the  tulip bulbs.  Helen Kiker, our elderly friend from whom we bought the homestead warned me to not  plant tulips, that I would be feeding gophers, but I did try, without success. 

Whenever the bulb catalogues arrived, I would carefully browse and select the additions for the coming  fall;  I'd send off the order,  forget about it  and  always be surprised when it arrived in the fall for planting at just the right time.

Bulbs from Sam's

After we moved to MN I learned that I could not wait until November to plant bulbs on my birthday, the ground would either be too frozen, too wet or the weather just too darn wintry to be out digging around.  Some years we were traveling so planting bulbs did not work.  One year, I did bury a stash of daffodils, a fail safe bulb which has always rewarded me the following spring, except these did not.  Of the 30 or so that I buried there was not so much of a floral flicker that following spring, not even from those I'd  carefully laid into a dish, they  rotted over winter.  It must have been one very lousy bag of bulbs to not produce anything.    So over the last  few years, I had given up my tradition, but each  year I think about it.  Here we have landscaping set and I really don't have barren  areas to dig up, besides, the other half of this household protests and forbids my disturbing his master lawn sweep.  So each spring I merely enjoy what is already here and each spring I think, "ahhh wish I could have planted some bulbs last fall."   I could not resist picking up a sack of 50 mixed bulbs in Sam's Club Sunday, Princess Irene tulips, Professor Einstein daffodils and Jetfire narcissus, splashes of brilliant orange will be welcome in spring.  .  Then the challenge was, where to put them, hmm I pondered.   I could creep down the back hillside, but then I would not be able to enjoy their show from inside if the weather is snarly when they are blooming.  Aha,  there is room around the smaller Alberta Spruce in the front yard. That will be lovely from the street as well as our big front window.

So, yesterday, I planted the bulbs not as easy as it used to be,  taking me several hours to dig all out the grass and then dig down, scatter bone meal and lay the bulbs, recover with  dirt and then top off with fresh topsoil all around the dwarf Alberta Spruce, a circumference of only 8 feet or so.  This is when I realize things are not as easy as they used to be and although I am still mobile and agile, it is a sign of aging.  My arthritic knuckles protested on my right hand too.  But now we can wait and anticipate spring and the glorious glow of new  bulbs.  Mission accomplished a little ahead of schedule but as the weather permitted.

And another thing, remember those tight budded mums from earlier this month?  Well they have finally popped into a brilliant yellow display, just what I wanted.  Must have been the frosty nights that prompted the showy bloom.  Or maybe they just like the rest of things follow a natural course, all in good time.