In Bulbarella's Garden

A single split cup narcissus blooms in the sunny utility meadow near the old chimney. Somebody recently planted it there. It is a sign of a co-dependent relationship. My need for tidy creates the space for another gardener's plans for world domination.

Bulbarella has been buying, dividing and planting bulbs on this mountain for the last thirty years.

This is the result. Still unsatiated, bulb planting continues each season. Her sights are now set on the ever more tidy sunny utility meadow.

The little blue specks of chionodoxa that have been increasing in numbers yearly are another result of tidy. Freed from a smothering blanket of the invasive Silver Lamium, Lamium galeobdolon, a host of minor bulbs now carpet the forest floor in early spring.

I kill the lamium in the winter when everything else is asleep.

Freed from a smothering blanket of Silver Lamium, Bulbarella is finding plenty of bare ground inside the garden's boundaries that needs filling. Expansion has been slowed. That is the best I can hope for.

Leaf covered ground as opposed to lamium covered ground has allowed for the spread not only of minor bulbs, but many of the native wild flowers. Beebalm is returning. I'd like to get more Bloodroot and Trilliums in the garden.

Would you like some of these bulbs I dug up? That is how my garden was conquered. She assessed her work this week and said you have quite a few bulbs. I doubt she is satisfied.