In a moment of weakness, I succumbed to the enticings of an email advertisement. It came from a bulb company's website with which I am familiar, but from which I have never ordered. They are a wholesale company (I have used their retail sister site) and usually deal in quantities beyond my home-garden scale.
I generally scold myself every spring for not planting more daffodils the autumn prior, but who can stomach the planting of lots of bulbs if they've spent the whole summer gardening and are completely sick of it all by October? Not me. This year, however, I was a light gardener. So, the advertisement for 100 mixed naturalizing narcissi for a mere $40 seemed like a really, really, good idea. I threw in 10 pink-cupped ones for under the apple tree, too. I was going to add 100 dark blue crocuses, but they ran out between my placing the order and their filling of it. Oh, well, I suppose that's for the best.
The very heavy box arrived today, and we got to work. I scavenged the local stores for left-over crocus bulbs, and found eight. We gathered our 118 dry gems in the wagon and planted around the apple tree first. Sonja and Laurel helped drop in the daffodils and crocuses, and Torin was satisfied to carry around a small shovel and pretend to dig in leaf piles. Next, we went looking for good places to plant the mixed daffodils. They went in around the barn, the smokehouse, up the berm and near the woods path entrances. By this time the girls were done and Torin had limited patience. I put him in the wagon and planted the remainder haphazardly in a few key locations. By the time they come up in April or May, I might not remember where to look for them all, but that's part of the fun.
I have a feeling that all the effort will be worth it. Spring may find me a light gardener again, but at least I won't be berating myself for autumnal laziness. No, I'll be hanging up my hammock and enjoying the therapeutic cheer and hope that bright golden daffodils bring to my soul.
3 comments:
That sounds wonderful! Next autumn I'll have to ask you for your techniques! Since we haven't seen our house in Spring, I'm not sure what is hiding under the soil.
Good point- we waited a year to do anything with the yard so we could see what we had to work with. Then I spent the whole second winter pouring over books and making plans. I still do that.
What a great idea, you'll love it. The thought of planning anything 6 months out is impressive - don't forget follow-up pictures.
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