I’ve planned to get into the gardens for an hour or two a day, while the weather lasts. It’s got to be easier on my body, and on my schedule, to spread it out over several weeks. With that in mind, I went out yesterday to plant six tulips about about a dozen lilies in the garden closest to the front door.
\nI wrote earlier that I had trimmed back half of the vinca in that bed. As I got ready to plant the lilies, I thought that it would be wiser to cut out the superstructure of the vinca, and remove as much of it as possible. I told Cop Car that I’m not kidding myself that I’ve eradicated it, but at least it will start from a much smaller base next year. That little project took the half hour that I thought I would be spending in the garden.
\nI started moving dirt with a trowel before I smacked myself in the head, got up, and started to shovel dirt out of the way. Clunk! Huh?? I tried again. Clunk! Okay….back to my knees with the trowel. I heard a metalic scrape. Light began to dawn. Probably 15 years ago, in an effort to outsmart the chipmunks, Dear Husband created a box for me out of hardware cloth. It’s a grid of wire that must be a half to three-quarter of an inch square. I dug out a huge hole, lowered the box into it, partially filled in the box, planted the tulips, covered them, lowered the lid, and covered that with dirt, too. It’s been buried there all this time. ONE lonely tulip has bloomed every year.
\nI figured that I was this far along, I might as well dig the thing out. Oh boy…..do my muscles feel it! Most of the work had to be done with a hand trowel. When I got most of the box emptied, I used the shovel to lift it out, and it came out in pretty darned good shape. There were two crocus bulbs, and three baby crocus bulbs. Not a single tulip to be found.
\nBy that time, I had a hole that was perfect for the tulips and the lilies. IF the chipmunks let me have a year of bloom on the tulips, I’ll be lucky, but the lilies should last for a while, and be a nice addition to the garden.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve planned to get into the gardens for an hour or two a day, while the weather lasts. It’s got to be easier on my body, and on my schedule, to spread it out over several weeks. With that in … Continue reading