Remember the tulips!
“I absolutely love tulips,” says everyone from April to mid-May.
“Meh. Do I really need tulips?” says everyone (or maybe just me) during the Fall bulb planting window.
The Annual Catalog
I got the John Scheepers bulb catalog a few weeks ago and immediately plopped it in the recycling bin. I can’t pinpoint exactly why just the look of it gave me pure exhaustion. Normally this catalog thrills me.
MUST I? NOW? Stop pressuring me, John Scheepers!
A dramatic sense of overwhelm happens every once in a while to every gardener. Overall, it’s a hobby that brings me inordinate amounts of joy and calm and satisfaction. But sometimes, I want to punch it in the face.
The lack of excitement - nay! the open hostility - I felt toward this catalog might have been due to outside circumstances related to life in general. Like the new garden bed I accidentally started. Or the multiple phone calls that exist in my future. Or long lists of things I need to do - like go to work - before I could do something enjoyable - like garden.
In that moment, it just felt like one more thing to do.
Friends and the Universe are on our side.
Weeks passed without a thought about the discarded catalog. And then I walked into my Thursday night ceramics class and my friend held out the exact catalog to me and said “I thought you could use this.”
I did everything I could to not laugh out loud at the Universe’s joke. Very funny, U. I suppose you think I need tulips then, eh?
I didn’t have the heart to tell my friend that I tossed the one that I got.
We then ventured into an in-depth conversation about our favorite varieties. Every time she deigns to discuss horticulture with me, I feel swelled with honor. She had a storied and ambitious career as landscape architect. So I attempt to shut up and listen, and then ask a bunch of annoying questions.
In that 10 minute conversation. all my tulip motivation came flooding back to me. (Thank you, friend.)
So I ordered three kinds:
Fostery King (red stems!): https://www.johnscheepers.com/tulip-fostery-king.html
Big Chief: https://www.johnscheepers.com/tulip-big-chief.html
But I have a feeling that when these pop up in the spring, I’ll be mad I didn’t get more.