An interesting story about tulips

Along the south wall of my house, I have one-inch tall green plants. I can easily recognize the tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils, some of which have been there for decades, others of which I planted last year.

Of course we can speculate until the cows come home about how our strange non-winter will affect them and whether a frost will come along to damage them. But I have decided to simply trust their judgment.

To put things simply, they’re wonderful.

I repeat, they are only 1-inch leaf-tops pushing through the soil, but I recognize them as dear friends approaching from a distance. Who knows how long they will take to arrive?  If the weather turns cold, they may be covered in snow numerous times. They may even have their tops nipped off by a harsh frost: Heaven knows that’s happened plenty of times. But like the faithful friends I alluded to, they keep coming.

And here’s something magical: they don’t have to arrive for me to begin enjoying them.  The mere sight of that short, thick green stem has me remembering the remarkably beautiful scent of the hyacinths, the friendly nods of the daffodils, and the airy brightness of my multi-colored tulips.

I think back to last fall.  I had planted a few dahlias, some moss roses and a few miscellaneous plants that struck my fancy. Along with those visitors were the permanent residents–the summer lilies.  When it became clear summer was over and the dead plants needed to be removed, I kept coming across bulbs a few inches down in the soil. They were tiny bulbs, quite clearly the offspring of last spring’s pollinations.

As I worked the soil, I pushed the little bulbs back down in, completely uncertain how many of them would be viable after four months of winter. Now I’ll get to see how that turned out.

An interesting story about my tulips. 

Forty years ago or so, there was a large old building, known as the “Chard House” standing to the immediate north of the Waseca County courthouse.

The county had recently acquired the property and wanted the Chard House, which had once been a two-story hotel, removed. My husband and brother submitted a bid to do the work, then proceeded to dismantle the building manually, selling or reusing many of the materials.

I took no part in all that, but I did notice the spring flowers growing around the building’s foundation–tulips. They had clearly been growing there a long time, based on the size of their bulbs.

Knowing the property was destined to be paved over, I couldn’t leave them there to be buried alive.

I dug them up, took them home, and they not only bloom every spring, but continue to reproduce.  One little annoyance, they came in two colors–a deep red and a vibrant yellow. If I allow the red to cross-pollinate with the yellow, the next year’s flowers are a variegated yellow-and-red. If I don’t pick the yellow flowers before they can cross-pollinate, I will have only red tulips. Large, beautiful, striking specimens, of course. But they look much pretty when they are joined by the yellows.

In a way, I see those flowers as my little part in preserving history. Yet another way they are like old friends who come to visit every spring.