Friday, January 28, 2011

My non-green thumb

That's right, I don't have one. My grandma had the greenest thumb ever, and my dad seems to have inherited her touch as well, but all I got is a plain thumb...well I guess 2 thumbs, really. I have managed to keep a couple of ivys alive for the last 3 years or so, but I hear it is pretty hard to kill those.

Anyway, when we bought our house a few years ago, I was so excited when, in late winter-early spring, a bunch of yellow flowers popped up out of nowhere in several of the flower beds in the front. They were so cute, and I didn't do a thing to help them. I could definitely get used to that...I love self-sufficient plants!

Almost a month ago, I bought a big bag of red tulip bulbs from Home Depot, but have not gotten to plant them yet. First of all, a few days after I got them it snowed about 6 inches, and that stuck for over a week. Then, I just got too busy and sort of forgot about the bulbs until today. I was coming in to work late today, and so this morning I got out my supplies and went to work. On the first bed, I raked all the mulch away and started digging some tiny holes, about 4 inches deep (per instructions on bulb bag). I started to put the bulbs in, and would cover them up as I went. This proved to be a problem, because I kept mis-calculating where I had put them, and so I would do one too close or else I would dig into one I had just planted. I obviously needed a new plan. I did much better on the second bed. I did not move the mulch at all, I just carefully dug the holes all at the same time, then went through and placed them all in. There were 60 bulbs in the bag, but I had a few casualties along the way, so I probably only planted 55 or so. I'm not sure if I did it right at all, and I'm definitely not sure they will bloom in a couple of months or not, but I guess it was worth a try.

Here is a picture of the second bed. That bush will grow out and bloom bright yellow in the spring, and I hope to see bright red tulips popping up in front of it, how cool would that be!

1 comment: