Tulip Trenches

Brrrrr, today was a cold one.  It’s great to get back in the garden again and see some blue sky after all the recent rain.  A beautiful crisp early morning and the full moon was still out when I started work.  The garden looks decidedly wintry with all the fallen leaves and bare trees.  A rather chilly water trough in the garden looked gorgeous this morning as the drips from an overhead outbuilding splashed into it, so I couldn't resist a picture or two.

The soil is heavier than I’d like at the moment but I must get the remainder of my tulip bulbs in for next spring. We have also had a few frosts now which reassures me, when planting tulips, that hopefully, I can avoid any potential problems of ‘tulip fire blight’ which thrives in wet warm conditions.

I love planting tulip bulbs, not so much the physical digging of many a trench for 100s of bulbs, but picturing the little beauties in spring as I plant different varieties.  I have the usual suspects that I love this year, Ballerina, Rococo, West Point, Angelique to name but a few.  I also always add a few new ones each year to my inventory and this year I have added the luscious, sexy, deep red, lily flowering, ‘Lasting Love’ and the double, ‘Lilac Perfection’.

I plant my bulbs much closer together for the cutting garden than would be advised in a conventional garden setting this still produces plenty of blooms and foilage.

Attention!

Planting tulip bulbs feels such a refreshingly different experience for a cut flower grower, who, for much of the year, focuses on successional sowings of tiny annual seeds.  Of course I love the tiny seeds but nothing beats the satisfaction of planting juicy tulip bulbs full of promise for next spring.

Now back to some more trench digging!