Bags of Bulbs!

A strange thing happened a week or two ago. I arrived home from my yoga class to find Favorite Stepson had loaded up the kitchen table with several large paper bags bearing labels such as: ‘These are a mixture: daffodil, erlicheer, jonquils‘, ‘Crocus — purple‘ and ‘Freesia – white old fashioned‘.

‘Someone drove up and dropped them off’ he said nonplussed, ‘She didn’t get out of the car, but she said they are for you’. Curiouser and curiouser! Is some fanatical gardener randomly distributing flower bulbs in far-flung Northland settlements? Or were the bulbs just a cover for more sinister activity? After all, I hear Helsinki is wonderful this time of year.

Bulb planting time

It took me a a while to remember a conversation I’d had at a staff Christmas dinner last year. It was (co-incidentally) my very last day working in Auckland, and I had got chatting about gardens with a co-worker called Barbara. What with her being a casual contractor and me only on-site one day a fortnight, our paths had hardly ever crossed. Never mind, gardeners form instant alliances, and by the time we were tucking into dessert Barbara had taken my address and promised me some bulbs when she lifted hers in autumn.

I had all but forgotten, and assumed that she had too. But no, Barbara, true to her word, had delivered. When I called her to say thank you (after bothering my old workplace for her number), she said she’d been rushing to visit her daughter who lives near Kaitaia and was sorry she’d missed me. Oh, and could I use some bearded irises, she was about to divide them. You know there really is nothing to match the generosity that springs up between gardeners.

So, I’ve been planting bulbs. The ‘daffodil, erlicheer, jonquil’ selection have gone in under the magnolia at the end of the veggie garden. The purple crocuses are snug in a pot which will be moved to a prime position in the English garden come spring. The freesias will bed down near the roses. And I think I’d better grub up a few calla lilies to put into paper bags and deliver to Barbara next time I’m in Auckland.