Cold Second Chances

The rain had exhausted itself, apparently, by the time the morning came.  No more fell during the day, proving the weather forecasts of the last few days for this grey but dry Sunday wrong, at least as far as precipitation.  Today, that was not a bad thing.  It provided the second bite at the apple - a little more time to get in the last of the rescued tulips bulbs from the spring. What the forecasters got dead on, though, was the temperature.  That cold front was ushered in big time, and stayed.  It was frigid out.

 

Yesterday's running shorts and sandals gave way today to leggings and socks in clogs.  The bulbs that were yet to be interred at mid-afternoon.

Getting those bulbs in was cold work.  But it had to be done.  Mid-afternoon did not feel as warm as one would hope.  But the bulbs that were in overnight, with nothing but a cursory afterthought light soil blanket, seemed none worse for the wear for being left out in near freezing temps and the heavy rain, but surely they would have been had the task been left undone for very much longer.  The job was done in stages, with several indoor retreats to warm the hands in between.

First was the continuation of the planter by the door.

The newly interred additional tulip bulbs.  Yesterday's are on the left, under their light soil blanket.

The near-empty planter holding the dislodged soil.  There seemed still to be some left over, even after the planter by the door appeared to be refilled.

The refilled door planter, level with the original soil line.  Allium shoots, I think, in the foreground.

Then the planter with the shivering hibiscus, which was trenched along the circumference at the back - enough for about four or five big bulbs.  And one was tucked into the foreground, between the short hibiscus on the left and the, likely dead, twiggy one on the right.

Hibiscus planter - before.  No pictorial record of the trench that was dug, or the bulbs nestled in.  I forgot; the cold may have frozen part of my brain, to say nothing of my hands.

Then a few little tulip cloves were tucked between the calabrochoas in the wooden planter with the honeysuckle trellis.  Only four or so.  It was just too cold by then.  Probably six or seven little tulip cloves remained; if they never make it out of the plastic shed, so be it.  They may have been too small to amount to anything anyway.  They got put away.  It was just too cold by 4pm, and the light was beginning to fade.

The last duty of the day was taking in the Thai lime tree.  It came in with all of its attendant weeds - too cold to weed it first.

The coddled Thai lime tree, safely inside.  With its weedy friends.  Some of the top leaves were limp and soft - the effects of the cold, although it wasn't supposed to have dropped to freezing last night.  The collected rainwater that was emptied out certainly didn't freeze.  But it certainly wasn't Thai weather either, far colder than the poor thing's native climes.

And the little Thai lime may see some action in the next few days.  My Mama's Thanksgiving guests accepted, and it sounds like she may incorporate some Thai lime leaves into the meal somewhere.  She said her much bigger, more robust tree became infested with some sort of pests that are now clinging to the trunk and the leaves.  She will not bring it in, not even to the garage.  So it will be left out - which means it will die, sadly.  Maybe during my Thanksgiving visit I can convince her to give it some sort of shelter outdoors; perhaps a dome of some sort will focus the heat and kill the bugs, and it may yet have a second life.