Six Billion Bulbs and a Eunuch

I have to tell you, it was nearly impossible to get myself back in here to write this post. Right now it is 67 degrees outside, sunny and all six billion tulips are blooming in my yard. Six billion may be a slight exaggeration but only slight. At least that’s how it felt from the ground up a few months ago with my spoon in hand as I tried to find places to put these little darlings. A dear friend assured me that the reason some of them were smaller and not up to my exacting standards or as the Saint likes to say my “Demands,” is due to their rather short time in the ground. As you may recall it was hardly my fault. Summer never really ended, it more likely resembled the big hook yanked it ungraciously off the stage so winter could do her little song and dance. And her special talent was freezing temperatures and icing my pond up a foot and half deep. Oddly, the talent portion of her routine was cut short and we oozed into what could normally be called a long wet Northwest spring. Of course it wasn’t spring, it was only January and everyone was confused.

Now that would have been the perfect time for me to plant those plump little bulbs other than the fact that Swine Flu was porking it’s way through my system and just before the little oinker left the pen the Titanic event happened in our bedroom thus inviting the porker to stay an extra couple of weeks. It was like some slovenly house guest you can’t get off your couch who eats all your best snacks and wants to know when you’re going shopping again. Dude, get a job or go home!

That left February and that’s when I got out there with my little spoon and a wheel barrel full of discount bulbs and got busy. In the end I gave up on the spoon and just used my finger to open up a hole. In case you’re wondering why I was using a spoon, let’s not get into the finger issue, it was because the winter was so nonexistent that nothing died back and there was simply no room at the Inn. What’s that? Sounds like I over planted? Heck yeah, I over planted! I was so paranoid that every single thing I planted would die a horrible wilty brown death that I figured my best shot at having at least one flower show up would be to plant six billion of them. There’s that number again. I’m not sure if there’s an underlying message there or not but I do enjoy the way I hear Austen Power’s Dr. Evil say it in my head. Now there might be a message in that but, it’s probably best if we leave sorting that out to the professionals.
Before the shortest month of the year and the warmest non winter was over we also dug up and re-bedded our gunnera plant. A huge dinosaur plant weighing, you guessed it, six billion pounds. This may not be an exaggeration. I was watching a home and garden show the other day and saw a group of seven men moving a root ball the same size as our gunnera. And these strong backed young men were whining about needing big equipment or more men. HA! The Saint and I did it with a strap and two crotchety old people. That would be us, the crotchety old people. Crotchety, but wily. And here’s my favorite part of the end of that month; the rose bushes were putting up new growth. I never got the chance to cut them back because they never gave up the ghost. They had roses blooming right up into the freeze and then just shrugged it off and came back for more. I figured I should at least trim them down and in a passing fit of pruning and, I do mean passing, I was on my way to the garage at the time, I grabbed the clippers and whacked a few stalks. Since I was on the way to the garage, read—to the car wearing a skirt and heels, I did not happen to be wearing my skanky gardening gloves, so I just left the stalks on the ground…"to be picked up later." We all know what happened next. The thing I didn’t count on however was that a month and a half later, after my blinding by Dr. Mengele, that I would find those clippings laying on the ground—GROWING. Just laying there, abandoned on the pathway, uncovered, out in the open, like they never even realized they were no longer attached to the bush. This place is so weird. So, I put them in some water and I’m hoping to have enough roots to plant them this summer. Maybe they’ll have roses for December. Of course at this rate they might have them next week. Hooray for horse poo!

And so now here I am glued to my office chair, literally, because it was the only way I would stay in here long enough to blog, the tulips are blooming the sun is shining and the air is filled with bird song and spring perfume. The garden centers are plying their wares again like the seedy pimps that they are and I am feeling like a eunuch at a porno convention. I am clearly going to have to, uh hmm…grow a pair and start yanking if I ever plan to take a walk on the wild side. Of course monogamy isn’t so bad. Not when you have something so tender, pretty, challenging and rewarding, always happy to greet you in the morning and smiling at you like you’re the best thing that ever happened on Earth. Gardening and marriage, full of bugs, disappointments, challenges and incomprehensible mood swings and one of the most rewarding relationships you can ever imagine. Springtime reminds me of why I fell in love in the first place…I don’t even mind picking the mess.

Nobody asked you!

It was sunny today. Bright beautiful sunny. And I went outside and stayed there until the trees ate the sun away. I spread a blanket out between the waterfalls grabbed a pillow and laid there with the sun on my face and the sound of rushing water from where there should only be rocks. I snapped of a dried twig of catmint and reveled in its warm nostalgic scent. I ignored the weeds and the grass that is sneaking in and just rolled over to look at the fishes now schooling about in the pond. It was a lovely day…and it is the 9th of February. It was an odd day.

We have actually been having a number of these odd days. So much so that everything and I truly do mean everything is sprouting and raring to go. I figure we are at least a month and a half ahead of schedule for even and early spring. Some years, feels like most, we don’t get spring until sometime in May. That’s if we get spring at all that is. Last year we had snow at the end of March and it was snow tire snow, well at least at our elevation it was. This year it’s February and my rose bushes are leafing out.

Now at first I was completely flummoxed by this turn of events. I needed the rest. I have things to do in the house, I have a new writing project to work on, I have to paint and most of all; I just want to sit on my butt and do nothing for a little while. And that would not include being sick with swine flu—twice, thank you very much. Did I mention that the new not leaking water heater is not exactly heating? No? Hmm, can’t imagine how I let that slip. No worries. I’m just going to dust bathing and get on with my life.

The fishes have shown up again along with the frogs. I hadn’t seen them, the fish that is, for…wait let me check the calendar, oh that’s right—five whole minutes. They look plump slimy and happy and apparently ready for lunch. I guess they didn’t sleep long enough to forget where to show up for a meal. They’ve been hovering around the bridge and the little ones are beginning to stalk me. Did I mention that last year, I mean last week, just before putting them to bed I discovered that we had new baby fishes? Sooo cute. I’m calling them chips for the time being. Yes, that’s right. Now we have fish-n-chips. Bwaaahahaa. I really do need a nap.

So with this fine weather I have found myself rushing to do the tasks that I thought I still had a month to do. Now let’s not drag up the past with all that silly bulb talk. I had plenty of time when it all started. I can’t be held responsible for the weather turning on me like that or the fact that my bedroom tried to kill me. They’re in the ground now so we don’t need to talk about that anymore. No, I do not think I over bought bulbs or that it was unreasonable to think anything less than an army could plant 700 bulbs. Perfectly reasonable. Ask anybody, really.

I had to transplant a large-ish gunnera plant. If you don’t know what they are they are commonly referred to as dinosaur plants. You know those giant cement leaves you see in garden stores sold as bird baths and the like? The ones with the leaves are measured in feet? That’s them. They are definitely a statement piece and we have one in the only place we can actually well, have one, at the top of the pond. The only issue is that I had to make a bed for it and that is a lot of freaking dirt my friends! Last year I thought it might have not been enough dirt and was convinced that I needed to dig it up and rebuild the bed with even larger amounts of dirt. I am now also convinced that this should have been done with a track hoe and several hired hands. That was not the choice I made. But hey, 700 bulbs and a giant gunnera plant, why not? It sure made moving the five foot rose bush look like a breeze.

Those are the roots on the right side of this lump.

Speaking of five foot plants…the six foot daisies needed some thinning. The word thinning is cruelly deceptive. Let me just say that when I think of flower gardening rarely do I envision swinging and ax and vehement cursing. I’m telling you what, these daisies are not thugs in the garden their a mafia gangland syndication. After that act of disrespect I’m looking for a horse head in my bed every morning.

So I bet your wondering if I have some particular point or, any point for that matter, to this post. Um, no. No, I don’t. This is just me being a little surprised that it’s apparently spring already and I have the robins to prove it. Of course this could turn ugly and we could be waking up to the white stuff killing all these over eager plants at any time. Except for the daisies of course. Nothing short of Napalm is killing those babies. As a matter of fact I’m planning on setting them loose on that field of evil blackberries out back which the Saint has taken to calling Al Qaeda. Blackberries and Daisies duking it out in a fight to the death. I’m betting on the daisies.