Surprise!

When we moved into our new home this flower bed already existed, although it was far from thriving. We moved 2 overgrown Lilac bushes that were not receiving enough sun and in desperate need of some major pruning from it and aside from a beautiful  orange Day Lily the rest was a tangled mess of weeds. We managed to split the Lilac bushes into about 6 seperate pieces and gave them to friends and family. My mother and I worked extensively to remove all the weeds, turn the soil, add lots of fertilizer and edge around the perimeters. Thinking I was working with a blank canvas I chose my colour schemes, that were a little unique and adventurous to begin with, and bought all my bulbs and perennials to plant. That first Spring I was so excited to see what our hard work had accomplished. Out of nowhere these Red Tulips and Hardy Grape Muscari start flourishing. Seems our care 'awakened' bulbs that the previous owners had planted. Every year there has been a new surprise, last year was a Pink Tulip and this year there are even more Tulips coming up that I am assuming will turn out pink. At first I was horrified. I had broken several gardening rules when choosing my colours to begin with and now I was having surprise multi coloured bulbs popping up everywhere. 

Somehow it all just works. I prefer the garden with the misc. bulbs more than I believe I would without. They add character with their cavalier, care free ways popping up wherever they'd like. I probably would have never picked a colour like red for Tulips amongst this bed although it looks positively smashing. 

These surprise Red Tulips are the belle of the ball. I look at these flowers as inspiration to just go with the flow, I'd never kill a flower anyway, and things may turn out better than you could have imagined.