Thursday

30 November 2017

— whiskers of hoar frost on the rose trellis

Good Morning All,

The sun put in a guest appearance yesterday afternoon, first time in a week, and I made the most of it planting bulbs. I was out a good three hours, although my back and left leg are this morning telling me it was closer to six. 

Most important were my mother-in-law’s påske lilies, which she planted in a ring in the side-yard of out house on Hultoften. When she did so is a good question. She and my father-in-law stayed in our guest house for several month back in—a wild guess—1992. Probably, she planted them then;  they have come up every year since.

As I’ve mentioned, I having moved to Fjenneslev in January, my Sengeløse neighbor Jakob very kindly dug them up for me when their green tongues first started appearing in early March. He put them in a big clay pot, which—after they’d bloomed—I stored in the garage for planting in the fall.

Yesterday, I chose a portion of the lawn in plain sight from where I’m sitting, used a long bladed shovel to slice a circle, then levered the two-inch layer of grass and sod up, and peeled it back. Adding some good old Hultoften soil (from the clay pot), I poked holes for the sixteen bulbs and drew the grass-and-sod blanket back over everything.

The bulbs were not very large, not much bigger than shooter-marbles, but all were sprouting and had healthy looking roots. So, keep you fingers crossed!

After that and after taking a break from bending and kneeling in the soggy grass, I filled the eight bird feeders, then headed first for the driveway and thence to the small garden patch at the base of the west wall to put in more bulbs for tulips, anemones, snow bells, and errantis. See the web pictures below (and my anemones picture.)  

The errantis  are the first up in spring, small waxy yellow flowers that look something like buttercups. If the arrantis  has an English name, I don’t know it. 

The cats and I had a great time, anyway. In dank, damp November, with December, January, and February yet to come, planting spring bulbs is a small but enormously satisfying exercise in welcoming the future.

Tomorrow, on my way in to Copenhagen to get a new pair of Jacoform shoes and visit a friend, I think I’ll stop at the Plante Forum for a few more bulbs, especially crocus bulbs. You can’t have too many croci!

Go and Stay Well,

Bhekaron