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Tulips! [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-21
Note: In my continuing series of diaries I will focus on beauty and nature as my contribution to sanity. Beauty still exists, despite the current evil. Enjoy!
Once my wife and I had bought a house, fenced, and with nearly a quarter acre of land, we set to planting. She did most of the vegetable gardening, while I did the flower gardening. I did plant and take care of the corn, but otherwise flower and succulent gardening was my forte. For the latter and since there were already sisal and cow-tongue prickly pear cactus there in the very dry patch near the River Cane, I added hedgehog cacti and unfortunately a Pencil Cholla. I regretted the latter very much!
Pencil Cholla, Mesilla Park, New Mexico. One hell of a agressive plant and the devil on wheels to prune!
However, one thing I really wanted to do was to plant a bulb garden. I took a couple of patches of land on the west side, one partly shaded by mulberry trees and one open to sun (the sun in New Mexico is much more intense than in wetter parts of the country and my partly shaded plot did better!) I went wild, planting several varieties of daffodils, a blue-flowered grape hyacinth, and most important, tulips!
My absolute favorites were Darwin tulips, species tulips and lily-flowered tulips (the later being the favorites of the Ottomans). I especially planted red flowered varieties, but also yellow and occasional bicolored varieties. Queen of Sheba lily-flowered was one of my best, never failing to give me good blooms for several years before having to be replanted.
The only native flowers with the same ambiance are Mariposa Lilies (Calochortus spp.). I once came upon a hillside with scattered Mariposas in Catron County, New Mexico and also found blooming examples at Four Corners, New Mexico. They are always wonderful finds!
Queen of Sheba lily-flowered tulip, Mesilla Park, NM
Queen of Sheba lily-flowered tulip, Mesilla Park, New Mexico.
Tulipa greigii, Mesilla Park, New Mexico.
Bicolored tulip, Edmonds, Washington.
Yellow tulip, Albuquerque Biopark, New Mexico.
Skagit Valley Tulip Festival,Mt. Vernon, Washington.
Tulips, Edmonds, Washington.
Mariposa Lilies, Four Corners, New Mexico.
As usual all photos are by me.
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