The two pictures here are of Snow Drops. Planted in September one year in the past and they multiply and return every year without any help from me.  They delicately and teenily  bloom like little pure white fairies every January to my recurring astonishment and delight!I must have been a dog in a previous lifetime because I love hiding flower bulbs shallowly into the ground and being surprised three to eight months later finding them peeking out of the dirt and in full bloom.

Today, I planted four different kinds of shade lovers and two types of sunny spot late summer bloomers.  If you live in Southern California, from now until late March or early April, is the time to dig two to six inches into the soil and place your bets, eh hem, I mean bulbs.  Make sure the hairy, widest part sits down and the pointy or irregular part is up.  Sometimes, I add plant food, but not always.   I didn’t today.  Then, cover with nutrient rich loam and voila! Forget about it!  One day, unexpectedly, you will be rewarded with one, a few or all of your tubers fully grown and in bloom, peeking out of unusual spaces (because the garden is fuller in the spring and summer) impressing you with color, texture and form of the startling and the usually brief kind.

Today, I planted sixteen sweet smelling Muguet de Bois, white Lily of the Valley, two purple Clematis climbers for a trellis, two pink Curcumas – a unique spiked flower, one red and white striped, deeply throated Crinum, twenty-four mixed Tigridia and twenty-eight lilac Liatris spikes.  Plus, I got ambitious and planted a hot pink camellia and a white, fragrant gardenia.

Happy Planting!

And I will get to the Anxiety/Stress releasers tomorrow, I guess, well I don’t know, sooner or later….. today I practiced gardening as a distraction, and I went to the movies…. but that is another story.