It looks like our tediously warm and dry autumn has finally made a turn towards wet, cold, and winter. Warm and dry isn’t the worst thing, but when the days stretch into weeks and the autumn foliage is more a giving up on life it gets old. The garden I enjoy is full of life and surprises and when it’s day after day of plants giving up I lose interest, and when interest is lost motivation follows. I looked at the racks of tulips waiting to be planted. I looked at the dry, baked-hard, beds where they were to be planted. I turned around and went back inside.
But now things have made a complete turnaround, with a day of steady rain followed by a night of snow which continued into the next day. In all it might be two inches of rain and as the snow melts into the ground I think the garden has finally received the soaking it needed and the gardener might have to get back on board. While the snow is melting the bored gardener has gone into the archives to see if he can find some tulip planting motivation, and even if he’s not exactly bubbling over with enthusiasm to go out and dig, at least he’s been shamed into taking a little better care of the unplanted bulbs.
Tulips in the front border this previous spring. Fortunately these seem happy enough coming back on their own each year with little effort on my part, although it’s well past time a few bunches were dug and divided.
I’ve been digging and dividing the tulips in the back garden for a few years now, trying to get ahead of the tulip fire (a type of fungal botrytis blight) which has infected the soil back there. The digging, replanting, and mulching had helped but then this spring, right as the tulips were coming into growth and blooming, a string of cool, rainy weather hit and the problem went from ok to all over the place with each rain shower. April showers may bring May flowers, but when May is also full of cool and damp weather it just brings botrytis to the tulips and that’s not fun.
The purple of Lunaria annua (honesty or money plant) mixes and contrasts well with the yellows and pinks of the tulips. Unlike AI suggests, this plant is a biennial so don’t be fooled by the scientific name.
Although the botrytis is not fun, the worser part is the smaller bulbs I dug as a result of their infected foliage. Digging big healthy bulbs is one of the June joys of the garden and when you’re just finding medium or stunted bulbs… again, not fun. It also didn’t help that June went from cool and damp to hot and dry all of a sudden, triggering the bulbs into an early dormancy, so add that to the list of reasons the gardener has not been feeling the tulip-love this summer.
Tulips in the potager beds, the worst areas for botrytis and the area where all the tulips are dug each summer.
The tulip love is back though, and after seeing the reminder of what it looked like last spring it makes me wonder how I ever even considered thinking poorly about one of my favorite plants. Surely it’s the lazy side of me searching for excuses to pass on the planting and find alternate homes for the bulbs. It’s like a flashback to the year I found rot in the bulb trays and with great disgust tossed everything onto the compost pile, only to have tulips coming up beautifully all over it the next spring, and have compost laced with bulbs the next summer.
I shall plant… soon I hope. It depends on when the snow melts, and how cold it gets for Thanksgiving. And when I dig the cannas and dahlias and plant the garlic, since that’s also on the to-do list since little in the way of planting or digging has been done while the ground has been so dry. Even the fall-blooming snowdrops have looked depressed and droopy, although not a single bloom was lost to slugs this year…
Galanthus ‘Barnes’. One of the earliest for me with only this one late group still in flower. The rest were less photogenic as they wilted and dried out far too quickly in the sun.
There has been one ultra-positive thing which has turned up this autumn, and that’s the bags of leaves which friends have given me and the row of filled bags which greeted me one evening as I pulled in after work. My nephew came through with a collection from one of his lawn jobs and I’m proud to say they’re already all spread about and settling down to feed the garden underneath the snow.
A driveway filled with bags of nicely mulched leaves. A gardener’s delight!
Forgive me for not sharing any snow pictures. The total for our town was in the 7 inch range and it looked beautiful from the inside looking out, but one day later and the higher elevations are still digging out, repairing powerlines, and removing downed trees, as it was a very heavy snow and their totals were almost twice what we received. For hours the interstate was closed. I’ve sat for hours on a closed interstate on a snowy mountain pass in the middle of nowhere and I can vouch it’s no fun.
Fingers crossed that my next post has a ‘tulips planted’ comment, and it’s not something which involved chipping through ice during the Christmas holidays. We will see, in any case I hope it’s a fun time.
sorta like suburbia 
Here on our little mountain, we got over an inch of rain and then almost 15 inches of very wet snow. First decent rain since early August, so we’re thrilled, despite the accompanying power outage.
Thanks for the pictures of your beautiful beds of tulips. Feel free to continue posting them all winter. 😀
Similar here, a good amount of rain but then more snow than we were expecting. I’m not used to it being cold in December, so this is a nice change!
But I will need plenty of tulip pictures myself in order to get through this snowy thing. I’ve been tidying up the winter growlights garden so that means I’m a little desperate already. Most years it’s a mess until New Year’s 🙂
I always seem to put off bulb planting, I don’t what it is. The tulips will be gorgeous, just as your pictures show. I’m glad you got some much needed rain/snow. I think it’s good to take time off, it helps with feeling reinvigorated in the long run!
I hope I didn’t put off the tulip planting for too long! There’s snow on the ground and it’s cold, and there are still a LOT of tulips to go in, so hopefully there will be a Christmas break thaw and I can sneak them in then. I did get all the tender things inside though. It hasn’t been 100% slacking!
You’re right. Some time off will be welcome.
Wow, that is a big first storm! I saw the endless swirling snow on the radar and thought of you. We got only rain, but at least enough to refill the streams. Good luck with all the planting. I’m relieved I’m done for the year, ready to hibernate. Happy Thanksgiving… beware the food coma!
Thanks and this weather has been perfect for hibernating! It feels like 9 when it’s actually 6 and the bed is soooo cozy. Enjoy it while it lasts right?
I believe you’ve had a share of winter snow now as well, but at least we’re not counting it by the foot!
Oh, the joy of bulb-planting! 🤪 Fortunately I got mine done fairly early as I am still convinced we are going to get a bad freeze this year. November has been very cold so far, so it was a good move. Your weather was so strange this autumn. I heard about unusually high November tempertaures in Ohio too. Anway, lovely to see some tulip photos in November! 😃 Good luck with the digging and hope they stay healthy next spring.
You might be on to something with your bad freeze feeling! After a strangely warm November, December has been downright average with plenty of cold nights like we used to get. I’m still expecting a midwinter thaw, but it’s been years since I’ve had to pull out the winter coats this early!
I did not get all the tulips in. Many are in, but on the last afternoon I looked at the ground, looked at the last sack of bulbs and thought ‘meh’ and tossed them into the garage and found a comfy sofa to lay down on. Maybe if we run into a thaw, and maybe someday I’ll learn my lesson…
Our cold weather doesn’t seem to be producing the big freeze up I had imagined…. yet! But January may look different so we are prepared. Now why am I not surprised those tulip bulbs of yours didn’t get planted… 🤭 LOL!
You’ll really have to get your tulips in – they looked so very well in past years and you are very fortunate that they grow well for you, that the bulbs increase well etc. Here, we treat them as disposable annuals and discard the bulbs each year. I’ve noted one garden where they were kept and it resulted in tulip fire which destroyed them all and made future plantings risky.
Ahhh, tulip fire has been the curse which blights the normally carefree tulips in this garden. I think with the earlier springs the tulips sprout and are around for the drearier weather which inevitably returns before changing to our normal warmer and dryer spring weather.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted and I can always hope for a few good years again. Snowdrops are much more reliable 😉
I love your tulip display. I bought a few tulips this fall. The ground was so hard and dry I had to ask my husband to plant them. I hope they respond to the little rain we are getting since he planted them. Otherwise I will have to admire yours through the blog which I do anyway. I hope you are gearing up for the big holidays ahead.
Cheers!
Christmas prep has started but it will be a whirlwind with just three weeks between the holidays! Hopefully the lights get done outside tomorrow, it’s my own fault I’m stuck doing it now in the cold since I made fun of the neighbors who decorated BEFORE Thanksgiving.
Rock hard soil was the main reason the tulips didn’t go in sooner. I kept waiting for rain, but never imagined it would take so long. Good of your husband to help out, I’m sure it was no picnic for him either!
Have a great weekend 🙂