Flâneur Gardening

I haven’t had much time for the garden this summer, what with an apartment to redecorate and a move to plan, as well as a busy schedule at work. And I miss the garden…

So last week I got a bit impulsive and decided to treat myself to a little dream of spring. Nothing too extravagant, but I ordered 500 crocus bulbs and 250 tulip bulbs from a Dutch website.

There’s absolutely no grand plan for this purchase, other than trying to get some spring colour in the garden. Both crocus and tulips are mixed colours, so they will go a bit all over the place. The crocuses will probably end up in the lawn and the tulips will be scattered in random groups through the borders.

They’re brash, they’re slightly gaudy and they’re in no way stylish, but they’re lovely all the same. A French woman I once knew adored tulips for what she referred to as their beauté bète; their stupid beauty. Now, some tulips are – to me at least – refined and elegant, but the ones I’ve ordered really aren’t. They are fun and cheerful, though, and I can’t imagine they won’t make me smile when they appear next spring.

And isn’t that a great reason to buy 750 bulbs?

All right, so my crocus lawn won’t look like this. At all. But never the less it’s the source of inspiration; to have at least a section of the lawn suddenly turn into a flower bed each spring for a few weeks before the lawn mower is dragged out from hibernation. There will be no pattern, and the colour scheme will be more random with the yellow crocus contrasting with the blues and whites, but still.

(And the planting will be less concentrated since I “only” have 500 crocus bulbs. For a dense planting like the picture above, I guess 500 bulbs would only cover just over a square meter…)

It will, though, be back-breaking work to get 750 bulbs in the ground.