This weekend I planted my tulips. It took two days. Here are some of the starting supplies:
That's 1/2" galvanized steel wire, scissors, and Colour Magic tulip bulbs from Breck's. Other supplies include bolt cutters, landscape fabric, garden dirt, hardwood mulch, plastic edging, a hammer, and a MP3 player loaded up with energetic rock songs. (That last item is very important.)
The idea is to build a wire cage that will keep squirrels, chipmunks, and moles (or voles? which is the herbivore?) from chowing down on the tender tulip bulbs. They ate my saffron crocuses last year. They're not getting my tulips!
Here's the site. I had to remove some curved brick edging that had become completely encased by wire grass. I looked at the 6 inch deep trench and thought "Hmm ... I think my design plan just changed."
So instead of making lots of little rectangular bulb baskets, I made one big circular one. This took forever. This is why the MP3 player is so important - to keep me out in the cold, damp yard wiring stuff together instead of staying in the warm house and leaving the tulips to the marauding yard critters.
Here's another view of the cage.
Here's the cage positioned in the trench. This was the end of Day 1.
The next day, I filled the trench a little with dirt and then put the bulbs into the cage.
Then I wired strips of chicken wire over the top of the cage. I'm glad that I recently had a tetanus shot.
I covered the bulbs completely with dirt. Then I put down the landscaping fabric and the edging. I was careful to leave the ring of tulips uncovered by the fabric. That edging stuff really got on my nerves. Like the wire, it prefers to be tightly coiled and attempts to revert to that position whenever possible.
And then I mulched the whole thing.
I'm going to let the wire grass bake in darkness under the fabric and mulch for a week before I cut holes in the fabric to plant pansies in. I should mention that I also made a little collar of landscaping fabric around the base of the mailbox to ensure that grass doesn't come through there.
I just hope the tulip bulbs manage to make it through the wire and the mulch. Hopefully the mulch that's over the tulips will keep the grass down to a manageable level. (i really hope so!)
