bulbs start to arrive

My bulb orders have started to arrive.  Avon Bulbs sent me an email on Tuesday to say that they were about to dispatch my parcel, and today a tiny box arrived, plus a much bigger box from Peter Nyssen.  My initial reaction to Avon's email, apart from pleasure at the thought of the incipient arrival of some plants, was bafflement as to what some of these things were or what I intended to do with them.  I researched them all painstakingly at the time of placing the order, but that was months ago.

Fortunately nowadays I record bulb orders on a spreadsheet, rather than a piece of paper which come planting time in September I'll find I've lost.  I keep a note of where I intend to plant everything as well, since sometimes a plan which seemed perfectly obvious in mid June can appear as clear as mud by autumn and I'm left wondering what I'm supposed to do with a hundred fritillaries which my fresh internet searches tell me will bloom in a dingy shade of brown, at a height of approximately four inches.

I must have been in an especially indulgent mood when I placed the Avon Bulbs order, since I was slightly surprised to discover that I'd paid five pounds for one bulb of Eranthis 'Schwefelglanz', and another five pounds for one solitary gladiolus bulb.  I had to remind myself what exactly the Eranthis was, and discovered it was a fairly recent introduction into gardens, a pale yellow flowered form of the more familiar bright yellow Eranthis or winter aconite, and was supposed to bulk up readily and easily.  I could see why I'd wanted one of those.  My reasoning must have been that if it survives at all, and especially if it shows any signs of multiplying, then I can get some more later, and if it doesn't I've only wasted a fiver.  Mind you, if they increase so easily as that then they soon won't be five pounds each.

I planted my one bulb as ceremoniously as I could, given that it looked just like a small muddy malteser and I couldn't work out which way up it should go.  Winter aconites are woodland plants, needing some damp and sunlight in the spring, and a dry rest in summer, so a position next to the Zelkova in the ditch bed should suit it.  The common sort have a tricksy reputation, growing like cress in some gardens and refusing to grow at all in others, but I've never tried them, because I don't like their particular shade of yellow.  Sulphur gloss (as Schwefelglanz translates) sounds much more appealing.

All the other little bags of bulbs from Avon Bulbs were destined for the gravel by the entrance.  The one gladiolus is an experiment, a single bulb of Gladiolus tristis.  This has yellow flowers and is much smaller and daintier than the Dame Edna type gladioli, but is dubiously hardy.  The plan must have been to try on in the incredibly sharp drainage of the gravel, and see how it did before deciding whether to buy any more.  What I can't remember is whether I intended to plant it outdoors at once, risking it outside through the winter, or pot it up in the greenhouse with a view to planting it out next year, and risk over watering it in its pot.  Or maybe I never got that far.  More research is clearly called for.