Yard Projects

I stopped writing daily updates on my bulb planting project, but that doesn’t mean I stopped working on it.  Unfortunately it also doesn’t mean I finished it.

It began with a box of tulip bulbs which arrived in the mail. I ordered them last June knowing that if I waited until Fall to go buy bulbs I would intend to buy them all the way until it was too late (That’s what happened the last two years running), but if they showed up on my doorstep I’d have to actually plant them.  I opened the box and saw the beautiful round tuilip bulbs and a few giant looking daffodil bulbs.  Then I walked out front and looked at the front flower bed where I intended to plant them.  I couldn’t find it.  The entire bed was grown over with grass and bindweed and assorted other weeds. So I got out my shovel.

Two days of work had the bed most of the way cleared.  In the process I dug up over 300 small bulbs which I set aside to replant.  Then I took a critcal look at the bed again and realized two rosebushes had to come out.  They were planted in front of a window and the hose faucet.  I spent a laborious 2 hours digging and wrestling the thorny things out of the ground and into a box so I could take them to my neighbor who wanted them. 

Nearly a week after the bulbs arrived at my door and I was finally ready to put them into the ground.  Since the ground was already thoroughly turned over this was easy.  Shovel, place bulbs, dump dirt.  5 minutes per hole or less.  Then I decided that I wanted to try planting daylilies on top of the daffodils the way that books recommend.  This meant I had to go dig up a clump of my daylilies and move them.  Fortunately this wasn’t too hard either.  Pleased with myself  I stood back to look at the flowerbed.  I looked at the bed and the number of bulbs and realized two things.  I had a third rosebush which needed to be removed (There were 20 rosebushes here when we moved in, now we have about 12, it’s plenty.), and I was going to run out of flowerbed long before I ran out of bulbs.  Discouraged I went inside for awhile.  Then the doorbell rang and the postman handed me another box of bulbs.  I stared in dismay at the box which contained mostly daffodils (with some tulips and hyacinths for variety) and remembered that, yes indeed, I had ordered these flowers too.

Yesterday I gathered energy and wrangled that third rosebush out of the ground.  This one I freecycled (Thanks for the idea cymrullewes).  Exhausted and scratched I wandered into my back yard trying to figure out where else I was going to put bulbs.  Back there I saw a dozen Fall projects that need doing.  Plants that need moved, weeds that need pulled, vines to chop back.

Today I tackled some of it.   In all I spent 2-3 hours out there working today.  I’ve still got over 100 bulbs to plant.  Had I kept up with the yard work all summer long I wouldn’t  be under so much pressure to get it done so I could plant bulbs before they die.  On the other hand had I not ordered bulbs last spring it is unlikely this yard work would have gotten done at all.  Next spring I’m going to be so glad for all of those bulbs.