We were so surprised in our first Spring here at Home Hill that very few bulbs showed their faces. Wouldn't you think that this 1935 farm cottage would have had some owners in all these years who would have planted bulbs in Autumn?
Other than a clump of yellow daffodils around a stump and a few more clumps behind the barn, not a single Spring flower appeared. Our first fall here RH and I were mourning the loss of our beloved dachshunds Otis and Milo and last fall I was sick for six weeks so not a bulb got planted.
This Summer I was determined that next Spring will be different so I placed an early order with John Scheepers. (Good thing I did it early because most of these bulbs have been sold out for this year.) Next Spring I want to look out my kitchen window and see tiny little bulbs blooming around our cupola perennial beds.
I have a thing for the tiny bulbs. RH planted 25 Galanthus Nivalis Flore Pleno...
And 25 Scilla Bifolia Rosea in these beds, tucked around the larger perennials. Aren't they sweet?
Even though it's a long time until Spring and I am completely in love with Autumn, and even Winter, I can't help getting excited about the possibility of looking out this window next Spring and seeing beautiful flowers around the crab apple trees.
And to open our front door and see clumps of flowers surrounding the pretty Japanese maple and in a bed surrounding the old park bench.
In the nearer beds will be what I hope will eventually be many little Muscari Armeniacum. Maybe not as many as in the catalogue, not in my lifetime...
But at least as many as we had around our big Kousa dogwood at Valley View...
Also in the nearer beds are "RH's bulbs." These are sacks of bulbs he bought at Costco. "My bulbs," more special bulbs from John Scheepers, are planted in the park bench bed, which stretches much further than shown in the picture.
Here will be some of my favorite Narcissus like we planted at Valley View, Cassata...
and Mount Hood...
and Starlight Sensation, a new one to me...
And behind them will be purple Allium Ambassador, only six of these pricey babies at first, but Poppy, it's a start anyway, even if not in the great swaths surrounding your house in Crete, of which you know I love...
RH got these in the ground before our big cold front comes in this weekend so I pray they'll sleep well over the Winter and reward his hard work next Spring with beautiful blooms.
Maybe eventually we'll have a Spring garden like our sweet one at Valley View.
A garden that will be handed down and many years from now a woman will look out her windows here and be grateful to the owners who cared enough to plant Spring bulbs in Autumn.
Someday our Kousa dogwood will be as large as the one at Valley View, it really will.
A Spring bouquet dedicated to you in November, my dear friends and family!
