A friend asked how many holes I’d dug, and what I planted. It was easier to answer here than as a comment, and besides, it brings me one day closer to my goal of 100 continuous days of blogging.
I must have dug a hundred holes. I had more than three hundred bulbs, and approximately three went into each hole (all properly spaced properly). In retrospect, it was silly doing it all in one day because I worked too hard and ended up with a bad cough that is preventing me from doing anything, especially not planting the last ten bulbs (lilies) that I’d planned to put along the fence in the backyard.
I really don’t see how I could have done it differently, though. I wanted the bulbs intermixed so that the yard will look less like a formal garden and more like a splurge of flowers in a field, and so it pretty much all had to be done at the same time.
I planted lots of tulips and daffodils. Anemones. Snowdrops. Crocuses. Dwarf iris. Larkspur. Grape hyacinth. Aconite. Bluebells.
And I planted hopes and dreams. Dreams of a lovely yard come spring. Hope that spring will in fact come, that the bulbs will flower, that I will still be here, that I will continue to find joy in the little (the best!) things of life.
(The photo was taken this morning and shows the frost on my field of hopes and dreams.)
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.
Bertram's Blog 
October 25, 2019 at 9:57 am
Well, this answers one of my questions. Most of those bulbs are early bloomers. However, I have snowdrops , and the name tells you that they come up before most anything else. The flower is so small and delicate, that they look best in clumps.The squirrels routinely dig mine up this time of the year , when they are stashing away walnuts.
We shall see…
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October 25, 2019 at 10:08 am
Most of the bulbs came in a couple of assortments, one of which was touted as “eternal spring”. Someone else mentioned that squirrels like to dig up bulbs, so they might end up with whatever I haven’t killed with my inexperience. The real hope here is that at least some of the bulbs will find the place to their liking and will multiply in subsequent years. Here’s hoping we both see some flowers next spring.
October 25, 2019 at 11:06 am
Sounds like you got your planting done just in time for a blanket to make the bulbs all nice and cozy for the winter to come. You definitely will have a variety of colors come spring. Tulips seems to be the early bird in this part of the country. Don’t know about your part. I’ll be interested to see how it all turns out. Good luck!!!
October 25, 2019 at 11:11 am
I’ll be interested, too. To get a blanket of flowers, I’d have had to plant thousands of bulbs, but I’m fine with sporadic flowers.
October 25, 2019 at 11:28 am
I bet you’re going to have lovely results. By the way, where in the WordPress stats do they tell you how many continuous days of blogging you have?
October 25, 2019 at 1:18 pm
I hope you’re right about the results. As for the notice about how many days in a row I’ve blogged, it’s not in the stats. It shows up in my notifications. (When I click on the bell.)
October 25, 2019 at 1:34 pm
I don’t think I’ve ever clicked on the bell!
October 25, 2019 at 1:59 pm
Really? The bell is your WordPress notification feed. I click on it all the time. It makes it so much easier to see who has liked posts or who has commented, and to answer those who have commented. There is a red dot if there is something new to see, no dot if there isn’t.
December 14, 2019 at 4:00 pm
[…] results of my last attempt, planting bulbs in my new yard, are still to be determined. Meantime, my little succulent seems to be doing […]