My stepmother is probably horrified about my slightly haphazard, easy come easy go attitude to gardening.  Actually, I don’t think there is much probably about it.  It’s clear that I’m not upholding the family standards as far as gardening is concerned.   In my defence I’ve decided I simply can’t compete with this so I’ll just have to find my own level.

That level is a large degree determined by the number the number of hours I can spend gardening and the other competing priorities.  Also the fact that I’m still a novice and without an expert on hand to advise I’m bound to make lots of mistakes.  I like to see my gardening exploits as an adventure and wonder what’s going to happen next.  Certainly this has been the case in my bulb planting exploits.

After having grand plans for planting out bulbs in carefully planting schemes.  The bulb people let me down and delivered them very late which, by the way, was just as winter was setting in.  So I had to abandon my plans and rather make do with putting in as many bulbs as I could as quickly as possible.  In my haste the planting scheme was put aside.  Which on reflection was probably a stupid thing to do.

Nevertheless I am now seeing the results of my mayhem. And it is not quite as bad as I feared.   Although the rabbits have done their damage on the bulbs planted around the trees, the bulbs in the barn raised bed are doing rather well.  They are bring colour and cheerfulness as I wander past to do my chores.

It may not have been a planned colour scheme, nor the scheme I should probably have done but still, its colour and that’s a step in the right direction.

Indeed I’m quite pleased that these bulbs survived at all.  You see there was a Mr Ratty Rat burrowing in the flower bed when I planted the bulbs.  It’s not a good start to have a rat run in your garden.  Pesky things do untold damage – until they are caught and dispatched to play their burrowing games elsewhere.

Of all the varieties of daffodil this is the surviving one I like the most.  Ok, it’s the only one surviving the treatment from the pesky rabbits – or maybe a basset.  Who can really tell who chomps them when I’m not looking.

I’m pretty chuffed with the irises too.  Mental note to plant more in a cluster next time.

Although my efforts to create a spring bulb garden have largely failed I’m not put off.  I’m sure that with a few tweaks in technique things will be better next year.  Like just plant in tubs and bring them on the veranda.  At least then I only have to supervise the bassets and not every other chomping vermin we might have on the land.

It is lovely though to see the colour in the garden.  It has made me determined to increase this for the coming summer – if Spring ever arrives first.   That’s the Spring that should have arrived about 6 weeks ago and is showing limited signs of arriving yet.  But I live in hope!