Hard Work Brings Blessings and Beauty

As promised, I’m about to tell you about the bulbs that were boxed-up and hiding in my shed, ready to be planted. Now I’m gonna stop right here and tell you that my husband was NOT prepared for what he would see when he opened that box. Inside, were bags upon bags, labeled by color, and numbered with the quantity of 10 on the outside of all 10 bags.

Now before all of you lose your breath from gasping out loud, or hyperventilating like my husband did, you need to know that I had a plan. A good plan, and that plan did not include digging 100 holes with a hole digger as his expression seemed to reflect or explode – as either adjective works.

Back in October, before I got ready to order my bulbs for spring, I was Face Book conversing with a friend of mine who owns/runs a plant nursery.  I was telling her about the difficulty I have with some of my flowering bulbs, as in once they bloom, the tops are heavy, and they can’t seem to stand on their own.

Last year we went to Lowes and bought some plant holders, which seemed especially made for that. It worked, but also made my garden area look cluttered with other things besides pretty flowers.

During this conversation my friend Sissi told me how to avoid all of that. Even as she was saying it, I thought, WOW, how did I not figure that out on my own!? She told me the secret was to plant at least 4-5 bulbs all in a cluster together in the ground. The weight of the group bunched up, would help hold each other up once they started to bloom. And actually, when I thought back to all the pictures I had ever seen of these particular bulbs/flowers, that’s exactly what they looked like – bunched into a cluster.

So, nothing to do but create my plan and go forward with what I needed for that plan to succeed. I ordered 10 bulbs of 10 different colors, which of course equaled to a total of 100 in those 10 bags he saw once he opened that huge box.

Once I had my husband calmed down, his breathing became regulated again, and I could get a word in edge-wise, I explained how all of this would work. There would only be TWENTY-FIVE holes, not ONE HUNDRED, and nobody was going to die that day from over-excursion. 

We loaded it all up in our wheelbarrow, he dug the 25 holes, and I gathered one color from various bags to make-up a multi-colored bouquet for each hole.

Now you may be doing the math and know that mathematically it should be only 20 holes for 100 bulbs at 5 bulbs per hole. Well, I already had one bulb in the ground, which would be dug-up and combined with 4 others, making the 5 per hole, and 25-hole total.

I know. Nothing is ever simple with me. My Gladioli’s will not be blooming by this coming Easter Sunday, but when they do, they will be beautiful and worth the extra work!