Things don’t always turn out the way you plan. That’s definitely been true this year. And sometimes that happens in the garden too. Do you remember those bulbs I planted last fall? I talked about them in the Autumn Garden Chores post. The blooms are all finished now, but I can reflect back on what I learned and how I can do things differently next time.
Blushing Beauty Tulips Fall Flat
Here’s what the Blushing Beauty tulips were supposed to look like–a beautiful delicate pink with a little apricot mixed in and delicate elongated tips…
And here’s what they ended up looking like… Boring. Plain yellow. Not at all what I expected. I can’t tell you how unreasonably disappointed I was when they started blooming. I kept thinking–maybe they will get prettier as they open. But they didn’t. I haven’t decided yet if I am going to move these bulbs to a different spot and try again with some fresh ‘Blushing Beauty’ bulbs or if I can be content to let them be and enjoy them for what they are. (I know, I know, I sound so dramatic over some silly tulips). Sometimes in life we have to “roll with the punches”, “bloom where we are planted”, “let the chips fall where they may”, or some other cheesy metaphor for accepting things as they are and moving on.
Timing is Everything
So chionodoxa… (let’s just call them glory of the snow, shall we?) I had never grown these particular bulbs before, but they looked pretty on the front of their package and the name intrigued me. Early blooms? Yes, please. We have fairly mild winters and my daffodils are usually blooming late February or early March. Surely with a name that includes the word “snow”, I can expect some action before that. When early spring came around, I started watching for shoots. Nothing. Early March rolled around and my daffodils were blooming their heads off. Nothing. Now I started to worry. Did I do something wrong? I’m not the most careful gardener so that wouldn’t be surprising. Not until my tulips were blooming (early April) did they finally do their thing. And they looked beautiful.
Conventional wisdom says they should be blooming at such and such time, but sometimes nature just does her own thing. I find that I too get so caught up in the timeline of “should” that it can be difficult to enjoy things as they are when they come.
Spring Fever: Tulips, Daffodils, Hyacinths, & More
I’ll admit that I was a bit haphazard in how and where I planted my bulbs last fall. I plunked them in an existing bed filled with other plants. It felt like alot of holes to dig and I was thankful that I didn’t have that many to find spots for and fit in. In the fall, I am usually so accustomed to constant color and blooms from a full summer garden that I forgot how much I look forward to seeing tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, muscari, and other bulbs in the spring. After the sparseness of winter, I check on their progress daily and wait expectantly for blooms at the first sign of life. I plan to amp up the spring display knowing how much I crave the color and blooms.
Final Thoughts
One of the things I love about gardening is even when things don’t go according to plan, there is always an opportunity to learn, to try something new, or just take a life lesson from a situation that might feel frustrating or disappointing. Rarely do things turn out the way we expect in life and many times that is for the best. I can learn to appreciate things just as they are even if that includes yellow tulips I didn’t plan on or blue giant chionodoxa that won’t stick to my time schedule!
