Well, after discovering that the front beds are actually in shade until after 3PM in the spring and therefore my early spring bulbs really don't do well in the front beds, I decided to take action and make a dream come true:
I've always dreamed about having a tulip border walking up to the house!!
They are simply beautiful and since it would be further out from the house, it gets sun hours earlier.
I wasn't sure if my husband would object to my cutting into the lawn and digging up the yard, but he shrugged and said go for it. "Aaaand, I'm buying 100 tulip bulbs." (With the final word being half a statement and half a question.) "Ok." Sweet!!!
So later in the fall I dug a trench next to the sidewalk...these photos are the trench on the left with my sidewalk covered in all the dirt!
I lined it with some leftover chicken wire I had because I have a mole on the loose and I did not want him cruising through there and uprooting them.
Fall weekends are insanely busy, so I had to do this project after work and it was mostly dark by the time I finally got dozens of crocuses, daffodils and almost 80 tulip bulbs planted!
Photos taken the next day of it all covered back over...
In the winter I stuck a few fake mini evergreens in there that are supposed to light up, but I only had 4 and the cords weren't long enough to reach each other ... oops! So they didn't light up, but at least filled in the blank space.
And then the spring...
I really, really, wanted it to work...that was a big commitment digging into the yard like that, so I eagerly waited aaaaand.... come spring ....
I started seeing them pop up!!
Now let me explain to you how I strategized...
put the crocuses in back, slightly behind, but staggered among the daffodils with the giant sized daffodils at each end and then put the tulips in front. This way as each later flower comes up they will cover the dying greens from the earlier blooming flowers behind them.
Brilliant, right?
So I have this fantastic staggering thing going on and yet...uh oh...
THEY ALL CAME UP AT ONCE!!!
Alas. So much for my brilliant planning.
They have been blooming at different times, so we did get to enjoy the crocuses, then added daffodils and now the tulips are popping.
Definitely a little tight in the bed, that's for sure!
Well, that part may have been accidental, but there's no accident about how beautiful it is right now!!
