The Very Fancy Lone Survivor

When we were in Tucson for Thanksgiving, we went to a very fancy garden center to buy a fig tree for my brother-in-law's new house. It was a truly impressive establishment that obviously caters to people who have a lot of money to spend on their landscaping. They had everything. 

This was, of course, a torment for people like us, who do not have a lot of money to spend on landscaping but nonetheless covet all the orange trees and fig trees and peonies and everything else for our new, totally un-landscaped house.

We really couldn't be buying a bunch of plants, though, so I consoled myself with a package of Very Fancy Tulip bulbs that were still way more than one ought to spend on tulip bulbs, but at least weren't a fifty-dollar tree.

There were six bulbs in the package. A. planted them in front of the house right next to one of the raised beds that flank the entrance to the driveway.

About three days later, there was an obvious gopher excavation right where he had planted them, and we sadly wrote the Very Fancy Tulips off as victims to the wretched rodents.

Also, A. spent many vindictive minutes flooding the hole and then putting poison in it. Too late for the Very Fancy Tulips, but it made him feel better.

But then, this spring, what should appear? Are those . . . the Very Fancy Tulips?

Yes! Three of the Very Fancy Tulips had survived the gopher incursion and were sending up their leaves. Of those three, only one actually bloomed. But what a bloom it is.

So fancy.

We also have some plain old red tulips left behind by Dale in the raised beds that seem to be flourishing with no care whatsoever--even propagating themselves, which is very unusual for tulips. This caused A. to remark that perhaps these Very Fancy Tulips are a mite too fancy for our admittedly harsh environment.

Nonetheless, we will be carefully transplanting our three remaining Very Fancy Tulips into a less vulnerable position in the hopes that next year we might get all three to bloom.

Hope--and the Very Fancy Tulip--springs eternal.