We can plant bulbs all the way through December. That means that we can wait for them to go on sale. That brown paper bag, top-left, holds regular big yellow daffodil bulbs that were half price at the local Feed & Seed. Of course, there were only twenty of them remaining in the bin…but still… Top-right, ‘Salome’, was also half price at the local one-stop-shopping center. Everything else, I ordered from John Scheepers. They carry all sorts of exotics, and I had my heart set on Allium ‘Hair’, an oddball character that I spotted for the first time last spring. It looks like an alien invader, so of course it has an engraved invitation to invade my space. To round out the order, I added Brodiaea ‘Pink Diamond’, Allium sphaerocephalon, or drumstick allium, and ‘Lemon Drops’ narcissus.

Last Saturday was a rare, wonderful day to be out in the garden. I got exactly half of the above bulbs into the ground. The soil yielded to my shovel in a most accommodating fashion. The sun warmed my shoulders without overdoing it. Night fell before I could completely overtax neglected muscles. Oh, for another such day to complete the job.