How Bulbarella Got Her Name

A funny thing happened after the Garden Rant interview. Bulbarella became a search word. Curious readers must have wanted to know what is a Bulbarella. The google wasn't sending them to a post that would help much in the matter and Bulbarella is an Italian surname that was cluttering up the search results. So I will help inquiring minds who want to know.

In about two months or less depending upon this winter that isn't, from the bare forest floor of the wild cultivated garden 10,000 daffodils and an equal or greater number of minor bulbs will awaken to welcome in the spring. Those will soon be followed by the later blooming lilies and alliums.

That is why I spend days like today hand mowing the still standing dead dried sticks of the perennial flowers. I like a clean slate for the bulb extravaganza about to come.



I moved to the mountain top in the summer of 2007. Imagine my surprise and delight in the spring of 2008 as I watched this spectacle of 10,000 daffodils plus unfold before my eyes. Do you know what your parents have been doing while you were away?

For a good twenty years my mother had been buying, planting, dividing and seeding all kinds of bulbs that the varmints won't eat in her mountain top garden in North Carolina.

That first spring on the blog I had called her the crazy bulb lady. What else was one to think? One Faire reader objected, saying there was nothing crazy about planting so many bulbs. Blogging being the social media that it is, suggestions for a better name were asked for. Annie at The Transplantable Rose came up with the winning moniker and it stuck. Bulbarella is my mother's blog name.

Spend some time in the archives from late February to April of 2008 and you will see what I saw for my very first Bulbapaloozathon.



Bulbarella is a well deserved moniker. Not only have the bulbs been spread from end to end of the ridge top garden, they have spilled into the sunny utility meadow, over the fence into the next county and off the side of the driveway into the wild forest below. The expansion continues unabated. The addition of the garden to be next door has allowed Bulbarella to spread her bulbs even further vicariously through me.



Now the overflow from Bulbarella's annual fall dividing operations are rolling down the mountain to my place. And much like her I plant them and promptly forget where they are. Each new spring is a revelation. I wonder what bulbs will come up this year?



The 10,000 daffodils and counting are just beginning to awaken. It's almost February. That is the right time. This winter that isn't does keep you a bit on edge though. A nice long cold spell of suspended animation would be welcome.



Many of the minor bulbs like the Snowdrops have also spread down to the garden to be. The expansion continues unabated.



Bulbarella is her name.