Flower Beds and October Snow

200 Flower bulbs arrived on Friday and with the news of the impending snowstorm on the way, I went out to plant the bulbs Saturday morning.

I took my trusty bulb planter, gloves, and the box of bulbs out to the front fence to figure out how I was going to design this garden. My goal for the front is to have perennial flowers that I would plant this one time and then they would come back every year. This is actually a goal of much of the planting we have done or will be doing - some long term perennials that we can use as a foundation, and then the annual crops that would need to be planted each year. With a mixture of plants for beauty, herbs, medicinal and food.

When I read the packages of each of the types of flowers, I realized that this wasn’t exactly an easy bed to plant. The depths ranged from 3 – 6 inches deep – depending on the bulb. So I took off the landscaping cloth and uncovered the bed, and bag by bag – laid out the bulbs in a pattern based on size and if they should be grouped together, etc.

It took about an hour to lay them out – and then a couple more hours to dig each individually. I wanted to be sure they were carefully and deliberately placed where they would look best. I also tried to visualize the heights of each of the flowers and the times they would be in bloom.

Many of them are early spring bloomers – so they will be the first color of the new season of growth. Some will not bloom until late Spring / early Summer.

The result? The bed doesn’t look any different at all from when I started. But, I know it’s different. We did put a nice fence along the bed to keep Pippin out and define the area for mowing, etc. in the Spring.

With that bed done – I was still looking at 50 blubs in a “Mountain Bells Mix”. I decided – with the size of the bulbs being fairly small, I would make a second bed on the other side of the front walk. This went quicker because I could dig down 3 inches, lay out the bulbs and then cover them with dirt.

(To the left is the Jerusalem Artichoke bed - to the right the Mountain Bell Mix.)

Lastly, I had a bag of 50 Golden Bell Daffodils. I planted 10 of them in the larger bed and decided to plant the rest around the Mums on each side of the front stairs and then along the bushes in front of the house.

I saved 10 to plant in a container next weekend.

So all in all – it’s a very strange feeling to know that 190 flowers are planted and waiting to grow in the Spring.

As I grabbed the shovel, gloves, etc . to bring into the shed, the snow started.

Close call. The snow didn’t stop until we had a foot! In October!

I am so happy to have finished this project and the Jerusalem Artichokes before this snow!!

A list of what I planted:

40 Golden Bell Daffodils

(late Spring to Early Summer)

Breck’s Dutch Treat Collection

10 Giant Crocus

12 Dutch Iris Mix

10 Tulips

20 hyacinth Blue Grape

10 Early Stardrift

8 Giant Daffodils

20 Alpine Rosy Bells

10 King Edward Tulip

50 Mountain Bells Mix

pink, gold, white mix