It is possible I got a little carried away. I thought I was being cautious. I thought I was only ordering a few things, that I was sticking to the plan and not letting my dreams run away with me.
You see I have really missed the flowers.
I used to have crocuses in the old front yard, before they got overgrown and trampled, before the yard was dug up and the dirt was hauled away and then replaced with other dirt hauled from some other part of the yard. Those crocuses may appear in surprising places. I shall keep my eyes open.
My plan for the new front bed is for mostly foliage plants, plants that don't need a lot of care. I love the textures and contrasts available in shades of green. But I also miss my flowers. I know how much I need to see those spring crocuses. I know the irises need dividing and need to be moved from their current place which has become to shady as the neighbor's trees continue to grow and cast a longer shadow. I used to plant hundreds of tulips in my rocky craggy clay-filled soil, replacing the bulbs every year as I couldn't plant them deep enough to insure a repeat bloom. I want all these things and I want to plant them now so that next year my world will be filled with flowers,
So perhaps I did get a little carried away. I always overestimate how much I can get done and how much time I have in which to accomplish any given task.
The tiny Tsuga you see above sits alone in the large stone bed on the north end of the house. Nothing else will be planted there until next spring, so he shall have to face the winter alone. I've dreamed of this particular Tsuga for years and once we started building this bed I knew it would be the perfect place for him. I was lucky to find him languishing among the end of season sale plants and he (why do I think of him as a "he"?) is one of the few plants I have purchased.
This is not true of bulbs. It seems I have purchased hundreds and hundreds of bulbs. I am amazed at how quickly buying a hundred bulbs here, another few hundred there, and so forth turns into a huge mound of bulbs that need to be planted. I suppose it is better to dream big than to underestimate oneself.
So the push to plant and finish, while the weather is still amenable, is strong. I dug and planted then dug and planted some more. This weekend I planned to transfer the dwarf irises and hakonechloa and plant crocuses and other tiny bulbs. But the first day did not go so well. The soil is rocky and hard and filled with clay, a bit of a struggle to work in, and not quite what I expected. That was my own fault as I never made my expectations clear. I added humus and manure last weekend, but my arms were already tired and I did not manage to dig it up and work it in as well as I wanted. I could dig big holes for the plants, but planting hundreds of tiny crocus and species iris bulbs, approximately 15 bulbs per square foot, proved impossible.
So I scraped off the mulch and dug the bed up again, mixing in the manure and even more peat, breaking up the clay and dragging buckets of rocks off to the woods. I hadn't planned on having to do this, but it was necessary or my vision would never take root. I interplanted the hakonechloa and hellebores with crocuses and the tiny bulbous irises that bloom in the early spring. Some of the irises were transplanted from another bed where they were hidden by larger plants, but I ordered more as I did not think I had enough to fill this new space
For a few moments, as I started opening bags and tossing bulbs onto the newly spaded soil, I had misgivings. I thought I over purchased even though I had measured the space and calculated the square footage and ordered just what I needed. In the end it worked out perfectly. I had exactly the right number of bulbs. The bed looks a little messy here, but the plants are settled and about 400 bulbs have been planted, and the mulch has been put back as much as possible. I spread the mulch a little more thickly than I found it but luckily I have another bag which I can use to cover the bare area.
I had forgotten this nervous excitement of planting. I had forgotten how nice it is to settle roots into the soil, gingerly teasing them apart if they have become compacted into a ball, pushing bulbs into the yielding soil. I had forgotten the giddy thrill of anticipation as well as the twinge of nervousness and fear -- what if they don't come up? What if I've done all this work but it is not enough? No matter how many things I have planted, no matter how much I have learned, I always feel that working in the yard is a bit of a gamble. But I also know how I excited I will be if any single one of them survives and I have pretty flowers in the front yard next spring, how each new shoot will make my heart sing, and how I will peer at the soil nervously and impatiently waiting for everything to emerge.
And I can't wait to get out there and plant some more. It is all I can think about right now, all I dream about. I look at plant lists and make plans, and measure beds and start diagrams to maximize ideal spacing. Someday it may all pay off. In the meantime I have a lot more digging to do -- if all the other stars in my life align.
