It’s bulb planting time! Yes, the box from Holland has arrived (I buy from Brecks) and I am gearing up for the tough digging. Our soil is abundant in rocks and boulders even though I have been removing them every time I have planted something over the past two decades. The rocky soil makes planting anything always a project—particularly when you are planting bulbs that need to be placed deep below the earth surface.
But it is worth it for the anticipation of spring blooms of crocus and daffodils. I’d love to include one of the mainstays from Holland—tulips—but I learned the hard way about 18 years ago that deer adore tulips more than humans. So each year since then I go for as much variety of daffodils and crocus as I can and this year I threw in some grape hyacinths for more pleasure. Bring on the digging to bring on the blooms!
Bulb Planting Time
by Edgar Guest
Last night he said the dead were dead
And scoffed my faith to scorn;
I found him at a tulip bed
When I passed by at morn.
“O ho!” said I, “the frost is near
And mist is on the hills,
And yet I find you planting here
Tulips and daffodils.”
“‘Tis time to plant them now,” he said,
“If they shall bloom in Spring”;
“But every bulb,” said I, “seems dead,
And such an ugly thing.”
“The pulse of life I cannot feel,
The skin is dried and brown.
Now look!” a bulb beneath my heel
I crushed and trampled down.
In anger then he said to me:
“You’ve killed a lovely thing;
A scarlet blossom that would be
Some morning in the Spring.”
“Last night a greater sin was thine,”
To him I slowly said;
“You trampled on the dead of mine
And told me they are dead.”
XOXO Rachel
Wondrance 