Although it’s January, and should be too early for thoughts to turn to spring, my eyes caught sight of a planter, rather desolate in location (back stairs to an office building, concrete steps, leading out to a grocery-store/Starbucks style alleyway), with a nondescript tree, and, at its base, small green shoots poking out of the dirt. I’m assuming they’re daffodils, maybe crocus, one of the first spring flowers to bloom around here, but it could be tulips. I still have studded snow tires on my car, the temperature has been dipping in to the upper 30’s, and it’s still dark at 4-something in the afternoon. Spring really ought not to be blooming. But tell that to the shoots.
It got me wondering about my tulips, and whether they’re going to come up. I did something very different for my birthday this past year. A good friend had given me a handful of colorful tulip bulbs, in part as a memory of a day-trip to a tulip festival the prior spring. We took our kids out of school and headed out to spend a day in farm country, which is a fine way to just plain get out of town. So when asked what I wanted for my birthday, an idea emerged – I wanted to plant these tulips, using them as the basis of a tulip garden, to go under the front windows of our house. This is the first time that I’ve requested a gift of service, as I also wanted my son and husband to plant them with me. I don’t know what got in to me – I’m not a gardener. The only other time I’ve planted flowers was about 5 years ago, when I’d moved into a new place, and it really needed something to make it more homey. I planted tulips along the front gate, and when they bloomed I was ecstatic. I didn’t fertilize, didn’t turn the soil, and to this day I’m not sure what I was supposed to do to the flowers after they bloomed – I didn’t do anything, and many of them bloomed again the following year. After that, I did still less, and it’s not surprising that when I go by this place, there are no longer any tulips.
I researched tulips in my favorite color scheme (purple and white), and I came up with great stately names such as the Triumph, Purple Star, Blue Diamond, Purple Prince and the Negrita. Some so darkly hued as to be almost black, like the Queen of the Night, some more toward blue, some with reddish tones, some like mauve. I was in a Crayola color paradise, and spent a few days imagining the rich wave of color that would come from this kind of purple glory, punctuated by white. I made lists of these tulips, and thought I was being like a master gardener – researching tulips that would bloom early, mid and late season, so that I’d have something that changed and morphed within one bed of tulips.
My birthday weekend, I went to the nearest garden store and showed them my list. They were not impressed with my master gardener plans. In fact, not a single tulip from my list was in their wall-sized bulb display. I’d have to order bulbs online, or choose from among their selection, which was sizeable, but mostly filled with red, orange, pink and yellow bulbs, as apparently purple is less popular. I should have known. Then they wanted to know what tools we had for planting, what soil we were using, what mulch, what fertilizer, what would we use to drop the bulbs. I was crestfallen, as my little project took on dimensions of a suburban remodel. My husband was overwhelmed, and quickly losing interest in this outing. My son was not able to sustain his enthusiasm as I brooded and considered and to-ed and fro-ed from one bulb bin to the next, unable to contain my own disappointment at having to choose among second-tier, poorly named bulbs.
We got the bulbs, dirt, mulch and who knows what else we purchased that day home, and no one was in the mood to plant them. I’d now managed to choose a birthday present that seemed like it would cause nothing but grief. So I waited a few days, and then perkily suggested that we get started. This, of course, meant that my muscular husband was going to have to dig up old, unhealthy dirt, which always looks easy but of course actually creates callouses, back strain, frustration, and, if you're particularly lucky, marital conflict.
My son came to the task with the cleanest energy – he was excited about doing something physical, creating this garden, and loved the parts where we could throw the bulbs in the dirt (oops, we learned later, they were supposed to be placed with the tips facing upward – so the last 2 feet of the bed might come up because we actually had those ones facing the right way). He was eager to participate in something new, to use a spade with all his might, even though all his might didn’t really move much dirt, and happy to be sharing something that was making me happy. I love this age, filled with such raw generosity like this. I don’t remember having this much willingness to put in sweat equity for a gift for my parents, so I get that this is really something to treasure.
I didn’t consider the sun/shade conditions of where to plant, as I wanted the tulips under our windows. So under our windows is where we began. And we completed the task. We dug, we mixed dirt with fertilizer, we placed bulbs, we covered them over with dirt. We watered. We felt that sense of accomplishment that comes after doing something that’s become ridiculously more difficult and involved than anyone bargained for. The conflictual moments faded to the background as the success and sense of pulling together took center stage. There was no denying it, we’d planted a tulip garden.
Yesterday, after glimpsing the sprouts in the sad tree planter, my son and I went looking at our tulip beds. We have two sprouts. We planted about 70 bulbs (I got carried away with the inferior-named bulbs and figured 5 or 10 of each color wasn’t really that much, especially under three windows. . .). I don’t know what will happen with the other 68 – maybe only two were early bloomers? Maybe only 2 were planted with their tips up? Maybe only 2 survived our rough winter under ice and snow, now water-drenched with not much possibility of drying up before Spring should actually arrive.
But two sprouts we have, and winter is still going strong. Two sprouts from inelegantly named tulips. And if these are the only two that make it, this is still my favorite birthday present, possibly ever. Every time I enter or leave the house, I am now searching for these bulbs to push through. I’m rooting for them the way others are rooting for football teams in the playoffs. I want them to make it. Two sprouts already is evidence, proof that the efforts we make as a family pay off, create something meaningful, turn us into people who can do things outside our usual ways. My son is excited about the two sprouts, and has looked closely across the length of the beds. He’s invested in this project, not quite like I am, but clearly his involvement was not mere compliance. They’re his tulips, too. We will watch and wait for these blooms, and already I have talked about replanting next year, turning this year’s efforts into our “test garden” so that whatever will come up (or won’t) will be part of the success of our efforts, because we can use that information to create a more lush, vibrant garden next year. I’ve even promised myself to research what I’m supposed to do after they bloom (cut them down or leave them) so that they might even bloom again next year.
I have an unfailing pull to create legacies with my family. I want meals around the table, annual photos at the hokey photo place in the mall, and now, something that lives only because the three of us put time, sweat and love in to it. I’m enjoying the possibility of tulips because of the endless treasure of their willingness to participate in my schemes. This year, it was tulips. Next year? I’m not sure. But knowing me, I’ll have something that pulls me, and them, toward creating something meaningful.
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