Buried Treasure

It felt good to get my hands in the dirt this morning. Most of my garden chores this time of year involve end-of-season harvest, weeding, and trimming up wayward perennials. The feel of cool earth between my fingers as I planted bulbs was just the inspiration I needed to finish preparing the garden winter.

I filled the part shade garden along my wrought iron fence with some spring bling. I planted the little jewels between hostas, deadnettle (Lamium maculatum), ferns, and coral bells (Heuchera spp.). Wanting the most bulb-bang for my buck, I focused my bulb planting in a garden that we walk by many times a day. The garden is right along the sidewalk that leads from the backdoor of our farmhouse to the distant garage, corncrib, and chicken coop.

Embracing the garden’s woodland feel, I planted four petite bulb species with the hope that the bulbs take on the look of woodland wildflowers come spring. ‘Minnow’ Narcissus is a tiny white-to-pale yellow daffodil bearing four to five flowers per stem. ‘Pink Giant’ Chinodoxa has a star-like pink flowers with white centers. Grape hyacinths (Muscari spp.) are 3- to 4-inch-tall stems with clusters of purple flowers. And ‘Ruby Giant’ crocus (Crocus tommansinianus) has purple flowers that hover just above the soil.

It’s not too late to plant spring bulbs. You can plant them until the soil freezes. Make your purchase soon though as supplies are dwindling. I love to shop at John Scheepers and Brent and Becky’s Bulbs.

Using her teeny shovel Hannah helped me dig holes. When it came time to place and cover the bulbs she was perplexed. “Mom, why are you hiding those?” she asked. I told her all about how they put down roots and then after the snow comes and goes, they’ll send up leave and flowers. I bet she’ll go check on them tomorrow to see if they have emerged yet. This will be an exercise in patience, for both of us.

Hide some treasures of your own!