It's fall gardening time. It's so much earlier than last year, when I ordered a bunch of bulbs that had to come from Holland, meaning they went into the ground about a month later than I'd wished. They did very poorly too. So this year, when I started thinking about replacing them, I picked a US source which promised two day delivery instead of two month delivery. It seemed especially important with all the mess with tariffs slowing imports down even further.
The two days turned into nearly two weeks, but that's our mail system these days, slower and slower and.... But that's another blog post. Or seven.
I had looked for bulbs in the stores, including the one I bought some in both last fall and this spring. I think I ran into the same idiot clerk I did last fall, who stoutly insisted they did not keep such stock, nor were they about to. I reminded her I'd bought some there last fall, and had originally asked when they would be coming in. Nothing exotic, mind you, just daffodils. She still insisted they weren't going to stock them, their garden department was shutting down, and conveyed her insistence in a tone that found me stupid and rude for daring to disagree with her however mildly. Since it was still mid August when I asked, I mentally agreed they were shutting down their summer nursery stock, but also decided some people just aren't worth arguing with. The fact I'd bought them there last year hadn't changed her opinions from the first time she opened her mouth. If I were still on the hunt in a couple weeks I could stop back in. Either the display stand would be up and fully stocked with fall bulbs, or it wouldn't. Other stores would have some if needed. Maybe the mail would come through more promptly.
And meanwhile I mail ordered 75 daffodil bulbs, one pack of 25 in solid yellow, and two packs of 25 in nearly every variety I've ever grown. They arrived last week. Well before I was ready to plant them.
Or should I say before my shoulders were ready for the movement required? My new pain meds were finally in my hands, though not not yet built up in my body. Now they are, and while not a perfect solution, they have changed my ability to actually do my physical therapy. MY therapist was delighted with my progress last week. As was I.
My son stopped by a few days ago with a bunch of daffodil bulbs he'd flagged for me last spring when they were blooming. I do mean literally flagged. I'd picked up a bundle of stiff wires with bright pink 3' x 3" flags on the top and we'd gone around his yard together. He pointed out places where they were overcrowded and heading out into the lawn, and I generally agreed with those choices. If they weren't all favorites, at least they liked the climate here. It was finally time for him to dig them up for transplanting into one of my flower beds. Even though he'd scattered a nice batch of scilla seeds in another one in early summer, he also just brought a bunch of bulbs from a solid patch of them under and around two cherry trees. By solid patch, I mean he truly has a blue lawn in about 5 different expanding patches in his yard, first thing every spring. A couple weeks later he has purple lawn patches when the violets bloom, and later yellow from dandelions. He had no problems digging up a bunch of scilla bulbs for me at the same time.
He planted, I watered, cut more rhubarb to keep the rabbits out of the lilies, and sent him home with a huge bag of various leaf waste for his compost pit.
I'd made note exactly where he left spaces for more bulbs to go in, since I also had ordered scilla bulbs along with the daffodils. I'd originally thought to put them in a different garden, but over the summer it had thrived with all the rain and the daylilies are doing that rare thing, reblooming on new stalks. They're also rapidly expanding. Even though I'd been busy weeding and deadheading over the summer, I hadn't quite realized how much their foliage had thickened until I had to find room to plant a few new iris in that same bed. No room for anything more there! In fact, I think I'm going to have to move out the iris already in there next summer for their own bed away from the daylilies, which means digging out half the rhubarb patch. I'm already giving one huge rhubarb plant to a friend this week, so a spot is opening up for them to move to. I'll still be keeping some for keeping the bunnies out of the regular lily bed, and the rhubarb is so prolific I may dig out even more.
Yesterday I went out and planted the last of the fifty fairly fat scilla bulbs, leaving room for the daffodils to go in. It is, after all, almost a 30 foot long raised bed, with a full third of the front empty this summer. There is room, and the daffodil bulbs have been mixed together so the all yellows are a random part of the mix.
I just wasn't ready to plant those after digging in the scilla bulbs yesterday. It had gotten hotter even as I worked this south-facing bed, and my glasses still need another rinse and wipe to clear the rest of the salt off the lenses. But I did need to do what I'd been doing with the other bulbs as they were planted - water them in well.
The hoses hook in to the faucet at the far other end of the house. First is a standard one, then one of those stretchy things which grow in length as they fill with water - so long as you keep the end capped. Otherwise the hose barely reaches the first part of that bed, nevermind the full length. I made a mental note to water the daylily bed as well once I'd finished, since we hadn't had rain for a week now, with none immediately expected, and it had new plantings. The short hose reaches that bed just fine.
I was stretching out the zig-zag expanding hose so it would reach the end of the just planted bed, getting ready to keep a tight hold on it because once it opens and the pressure eases off, it starts to shrink. I have to be stronger than its need to shrink as soon as the end opens or the far end of the garden patch won't get any water. I planted my feet, gave a last tug to give myself a bit more advantage in that battle with the hose, and reached to twist open the brass fitting which opens it.
POW! The whole fitting and hose exploded in my hand! Of course I dropped it in reaction, giving myself the beginning of my post-gardening shower for the day. As the hose slunk away across the grass, I picked up the fitting and followed it. Of course I went all the way to the faucet on the house and shut it off, then went back to uncouple the two hoses.
Or tried. My hand strength wasn't up to the job. I tried again a few minutes later, just to be sure it wasn't the shock of the event that was stopping me. Nope. It needed stronger hands. The stretchy hose was simply not fixable either, fabric totally separated from fittings... by about 6 feet, aka the distance I held them apart.
The solution wound up taking the rest of the day. I ordered a new standard kind of hose, along with a standard spray attachment for the end, packed the tangled mess of old hoses into the car, and once my son was home, drove the mess to his house to unfasten. Bless strong young guy hands! The stretchy part is in his garbage can. The new one is now in my possession, but the work stopped last night at freeing it from it's packaging. Those plastic straps took a wire cutter to cut. Locating said cutter took half an hour. The old standard hose is on the parking pad, waiting to be hooked up to the faucet. I did bring the new spray nozzle into the house last night... somewhere.
I was going to look for it this morning. I decided that since Mother Nature woke me up with a two hour shower, I could wait at least till tomorrow to put it all together and haul it across the lawn.
Sometime after planting some of those daffodil bulbs seems like a good time to take care of it. That job has been moved up a bit more than I'd planned. It seems, since no rain had been forecast, that the box with those bulbs in it had been left out on the porch. It's a covered porch. But the box was under the one spot on the porch where the downspout delivers a full roof's worth of rain to. (Interesting in winter with the ice, eh?)
They are now drying out on top of folded towels on the counter. I got this morning's unplanned shower about a half of a minute after I realized where they'd been left.
Upon reflection, I find a warmer one with soap and safety bars much more refreshing. I think I'll stick to those in the future.
If I can....
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