Replanted bulb garden

What do you get when you combine:

* A large plot of ground that was planted with tulips and a few daffodils 2 years ago
* One really evil ant
* A weekend plus a Monday
* 4 ft^3 of compost (Miracle Grow organic)
* 4 ft^3 of mulch (small bark chips)
* 15 bulbs Darwin tulips "Golden Oxford" 18"-20" tall mid-spring ($6.96)
* 15 bulbs Darwin tulips "Banja Luka" 20"-22" tall mid-spring ($6.96)
* 8 bulbs Triumph tulips "Ile de France" 18"-20" tall ($3.96)
* 1 bulb Fritillaria "Rubra Maxima" 32"-40" tall mid-spring ($6.96)
* 12 bulbs Allium "Purple Sensation" 26"-34" tall late-spring ($6.96)

Well, on Saturday I decided that aforementioned plot of ground needed to be dug up and the tulips all replaced. Tulips suck, really. The deer eat them, the number of flowers get smaller each year instead of larger, and they die back during the summer just leaving bare ground. But they're also really pretty. Here, have a picture from two years ago:



And then one year ago:



So, I want to get back some of the glory of two years ago. Also, I want to break the plot into two different sections, a front and a back, so that I can plant tulips this autumn and gladiolus in the spring. Unlike tulips, I love glads on just about every point. See this post for why. So, I plan to plant tulips toward the yard, and then have the glads come up on the house side, blocking out my view of the bare ground during the summer.

So, I started digging on Saturday. And was only barely started when I felt a pinch inside my pants. I thought, "Ow!! What the heck? Was that my underwear pinching?" And then I thought, "Ow, ow, ow, something's biting me!!!" Well, thank goodness we live in the middle of a forest where no one can see me, because I was running across the yard yelling and hollering, and ripping off my pants. Yes, it's undignified. You'd do it too if you had an ant in your pants. ;-P

Anyway, the little bastard bit me on the ass seven times. So, that was the end of my Saturday gardening. I went inside, applied medicine to my tender rear end, and called it a day.

Sunday though, I was back. Over the course of a number of hours I dug up the plot, removing the various miniscule, tiny, small, medium, and occasional large bulbs from the plot for possible replanting. Turned out I had buried the poor things overly deep last time, at least 9 inches deep I'd say.

Today, Monday, I got out of work a little early (since I figured I had easily made up the hours when I had insomnia this morning and was working from 4 to 6 AM) and went to Home Depot. There I bought bulbs, mulch, and compost. When I got home I proceeded to mix the compost into the soil. Then make the trench and place the various bulbs I bought as well as a selection of the larger bulbs I had removed from the soil originally. I didn't try for any particular pattern or order to the planting, since it's not like I'll ever be trying to separate the tulips out again later. (I learned that lesson in the past couple years.) So, I tried to plant clumps of the various colors, with kind of random borders to make it look more informal, and just a lot of random crap as well.



I really couldn't stand to throw out so many little bulbs, so I ended up going down to a pretty ridiculously small size and sprinkling them into the trench before filling it.



I think I might have oscillated the opposite way and planted these too shallow. Oh well, we shall see.

Oh, and purely because, here's a current picture of my vege/flower garden. I love that massive green splotch that is the squash. I'm also kind of fond of the big sunflower in the foreground on the right side. I'm not so fond of the fact that the trees seem to think "September 1" equates with "it's fall, drop your leaves!"