the little purple tulip that could

As I've mentioned previously, most of the tulips which actually came up this Spring were the ivory ones from the batch. I'm guessing purple is a more difficult color to grow, because I haven't seen many out... lots of red, pink, and yellows, but no purple.

Well, I think I've had a total of 3 or 4 purple tulips actually bloom the Spring...
here is the most recent. I love how the ivory "siblings" tower over it.

"blue girl" rose bush

soon-to-be-purple tulip

soon-to-be-white tulip

daffodils, day lily peeking through, and "gold glow" rose bush

sunflower sprout, wildflowers or maiden pinks, another sunflower sprout

Who am I kidding?

Extending a flowerbed takes a lot of work. I am not sure I am that motivated this fall. Plus, it's far too nice outside today to spend it indoors, cleaning. Upon laying Bear down for her nap, I went outside to plant the tulip bulbs which I purchased at Costco yesterday. Here's a pic of the package label:

I saved a few for my sister, and I'm hoping that we both get a good mix of the colors. I couldn't tell which bulb will produce which color bloom.

While I was at it, I pulled up ("lifted" is the gardening term) 6 of the gladiola corms. See, most of my research says glads are tender and should be lifted. But I found a couple of articles indicating that some people have had pretty decent luck with their glads coming back in this region of the country. My Dad said he doesn't lift his... some return and some die. So I'm experimenting. I lifted some and left some in the ground. I even rinsed the dirt off them and dried them according to recommendations.. hopefully our garage is cool enough for proper storage. Here they are:


See the baby corms on one of the mamas? Isn't it amazing that something so ugly can produce such a brilliant bloom? Oh, and the darker part of each of the bigger corms is the shriveled remains of the corm that produced the blooms this summer. I did have to laugh as I cleaned them, though. I remembered how last Spring, when I told Hubby's Gramma I had planted glads, she had said something along the lines of them being too much work for her and "good luck". Of course, where she lives, they will not survive the winter underground. But I never thought I would see the day where I would be more motivated to do something than Gramma! Plus, these glads were soo pretty that I don't want to risk losing all of them. And if the corms I lifted to survive the winter, as well as the other glad corms, I can plant them to come up later than the others, prolonging the color. Hypothetically speaking, of course.

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I found these instructions on how to plant bulbs, and the author's writing style amused me. Plus, he kept it simple...