Landscaping Project--The Conclusion

Okay, so I got a little behind on my blogging lately! I figured I'd fill you in on my landscaping project. First, we have to backtrack a little bit to the beginning of July.

I imagine you're already thinking "a landscaping project in July? No one plants anything in July." However, you are so wrong. I plant things in July. Granted, it was not really by choice--it was more that I pretty much had to do something with what was left of the plants I started in February. After all that work with the seeds, and the watering, and the plant tending, I had to have something to show for my landscaping project effort!

So, it's a Sunday in early July. Lucky me, it happens to be one of the hottest Sundays of the whole summer--somewhere around 101 + heat index. And what am I doing? Planting what's left of my plants. I'd venture a guess that of all the seeds I started and all the bulbs I ordered, probably only about 1/3 of them survived to July, when I finally got around to planting what was left. Of the plants that were still living, I'd venture a guess that roughly 10 survived. Alright, so I knew July was a bad time to plant--something about it being to hot and too little rain, but I was going to see this damn project through! On the plus side, I now have 3 new beds dug for next year, so I can start the whole process over again next February!

I'll skim over two of the beds I made that were not so successful (not so successful might be an understatement) and just write about my "bulb garden."

It's Sunday night, Jeremy and I are finally sitting on the porch, relaxing and having a beer. Jeremy says, "It'll be a miracle if anything comes up in that bed besides weeds."

Returning to Sunday morning, it's already upper 80s but I decided I had to get the bed made for my bulbs. Half of them were starting to rot in the bags and the other half were already sprouting. And that was in a dark cupboard in the house. So out I go with my spade. I will just briefly say that there should be a law in Georgia against me operating a spade. I started out working in the shade, which, okay, was still hot as hell. An hour later, I had maybe one edge along the guest house dug up. Every time I sank the stupid spade into the ground, I'd hit a brick. The process went something like this:

1) Me standing on a spade that is not sinking in to the ground
2) Me swaying and spiraling around on the spade like it's some sort of amusement park ride before falling off the spade, which if I was lucky, was now 1 inch into the ground.
3) Me getting back on the spade and repeating the process
4) Me hitting a brick--thud--causing the spade to immediately shoot away from me. Unfortunately, sometimes this meant it bounced into the side of the guest house and then back into me, which meant me falling off the spade again.
5) Me getting hot, chugging water, and running to the bathroom every 15 minutes
6) And repeat

Every so often, I'd actually manage to unearth a brick. After about an hour of this. I got really hot and decided I'd feel a lot cooler if I took off my shoes. That's when I discovered fire ants. Of course, I can't find the fire ant hill when I'm well protected. No, not me. After dancing around and frantically brushing off fire ants, I returned to my tilt-a-spade ride.

About an hour and a half of this went on when Jeremy finally came out to check my progress. By this point, there was no longer any shade at all, and I was a dripping, fire ant bitten, stinky mess. And still I had managed to dig up no more than about a tenth of my bulb bed. I have to admit, it was my fault that I was stuck digging up a flower bed on the hottest day of the year, so I really didn't feel I should complain about the heat. Instead, I complained about the fire ants. Informing Jeremy of my misfortune, I whined, "My feet are so itchy!"

"That's what you get for walking around without your shoes on," he replied. What? How'd he know? Where's the sympathy? I looked down at my feet. My shoes were on. There was no way he could know I had taken them off, so I told him "I have my sandals on (note the "subtle" word play. I didn't say had them on. . .). They just started swarming all over my feet!"

Jeremy looked at me skeptically. I'm pretty sure he didn't believe me but decided it might be better to act like he did. But that was about all he did before he went back inside, and I continued my inept spade work.

After about another hour, Jeremy came back outside. I think he finally took pity on me because he had a shovel this time. In about half an hour, the whole bed was done. Of course, he took the easy part that had no bricks stuck under it, which is why it took him no time at all to do the other 9/10th of the bed (this is my view anyway, and I'm always right, so. . .).

By the time the bed was finally dug up, it was midafternoon, and I needed a break. I decided the best thing to do was clean up, cool off, and wait till it cooled off in the evening to plant the bulbs. It was a good idea at the time.

Evening rolls around, and I gather all my bulbs. Meticulously and carefully, I begin planting all the bulbs, trying to arrange them perfectly so that all the different kinds are intermingled evenly. This meticulousness also meant that I was planting them very slowly. The next thing I know it's starting to get dark, and I still have over 100 bulbs to plant. That was pretty much when I just said screw it. I wanted to be done with this whole project that day. So, I developed a new planting method:

a) Scrape back a pile of dirt
b) Drop in a buttload of bulbs
c) Make a half-assed attempt at covering them
d) Move over a few inches and repeat.

Needless to say, all 100+ bulbs were planted, albiet not very well, in a matter of minutes. Some of them still poked above the ground. Others all you had to do was accidentally brush the dirt and there were the bulbs. I didn't care. I was done.

Jeremy joined me. I was satified. He was shaking his head again. He was positive that there was no way anything was going to grow in my bulb garden. I didn't care. All I cared about was that I had completed my project. Not a single plant or bulb (well none of the ones that were still living) remained--all were stuck in dirt.

Two weeks later, Jeremy came into the house looking incredulous.

"What?" I asked.
"Have you looked at your bulb garden lately?" Of course I hadn't. It was done. I was done. I was pretty sure Jeremy was right and nothing was going to grow, so why bother looking at dirt.
"Nope, why?"
"Go look at it. I don't know how you managed that. I don't know why either." I went outside. Little sprouts were shooting up everywhere. Granted, I know a lot of the bulbs didn't make it, and granted, none of them actually flowered this year, but wait til next year!

I turned around and looked at Jeremy.
"I guess I'll have to buy a few more bulbs next year. I should probably put some foliage plants in there too. I could get some more plant seeds. Maybe some flower seeds too--daisies! I should do some more reasearch and figure out what other kinds of flowers to plant!"

Jeremy just remained silent.