Hmmm. How to describe the tulips without destroying their self-esteem? Ok, put it like this: my tulips aren't exactly what you'd call Miss Universe material. They might take home the award for Miss Congeniality, but they're never going to bag the royal crown, or even a runner-up ribbon.
It's OK, I've accepted this. I am not blind to their poor performance and undeniable homeliness. If I'm honest with you, I'd have to say my tulips are dysfunctional, but you don't like to saddle the poor things with labels.
So, for the purposes of description but not judgment, let me say that I have scruffy tulips with fat leaves that slouch over as if too lazy to stand up straight.
And to add insult to injury, the ones growing in the "flower" bed at the front of the house haven't bothered to sprout flowers this year. It's as if they popped out of the ground in April, looked around and said, "You know, I think I'll just give the whole thing a miss this year."
There was a half-hearted flowering from the tulips in the other bed, but they shouldn't have bothered. The little tight-fists of colour didn’t exactly bloom into glorious flower; they just sort of flopped down, one petal here, one there, giving the whole thing an ugly asymmetry.
I'd like to blame the weather. I’d like to say that my tulips were waterlogged by the excesses of May. But I know my tulips. They'd have looked like a train wreck even if the rains of May had never happened.
It has been pointed out to me that the lifespan of a tulip bulb is something like six or seven years. I’m sure this is true, but I’m one of these immediate gratification gardeners. If I'm going to bother planting something, I want to see results, now, not in six months.
I probably wouldn’t be regaling you with this sad tulip tale were it not for the actions of a certain neighbour. The fact is that while my tulips may never been much to look at, they found good company with the tulips growing her front garden.
I’m not one to dine on the failure of others, but I must say that it always brought me comfort to know her tulips were equally sad and in some cases worse than mine. She had the neighbourly decency to keep the tulip standards low in the ‘hood.
But that all changed last fall when my neighbour began taking advice on her tulips. She did her research, dug up her tulip beds, dressed them in fancy new soil, bought a bag of bulbs and planted them; all of this without my knowledge or consent.
Well, imagine my shock when I walked by her house and found pert, nubile, symmetrical tulips springing out of the beds. Not only are they beautiful young specimens, but they've clearly been arranged in cute little groupings and planned for staggered flowering!
When I questioned her, she was sheepish. Yes, she admitted, she'd put some effort into her tulip beds. And yes, she'd committed this act behind my back. She didn’t come out say it, but this neighbour knew darned well what her actions meant for me and my scruffy tulips.
Feeling guilty, she offered to help me with mine this fall, but I'm afraid it's a little too late for her advice. She betrayed us, me and my low-functioning tulips, and now we're the laughing stock of the ‘hood.
You know, I have good mind to run out, get a truckload of soil and plant a load of kick-butt annuals just as her tulips are dying off. Yes, that's it. I’ll call it the Begonia Revenge.
