September 23, 2016 – Let’s talk about Red Two Lips – I mean, Red Tulips

          I love spring.  I adore red tulips in the garden as they are so eye catching.  But, you have to plant them in the fall for spring bloom.  Part of you has to be optimistic.  This simple little bulb is going to sleep underground all winter and in the spring sally forth, push through the soil and grow into a tall beautiful bloom waving in the chilly spring wind.

          Every year I plant tulips which are not long lived down here in the Carolinas.  One year I planted a large swath of tulips in the middle avenue of my vegetable garden with the intent of everyone easily seeing them in the center of the garden as they drove by.

          Since I do all the flower planting, I am the one who turned the soil, amended the soil and set the 100 red tulip bulbs in staggered rows in the center avenue of the five avenue vegetable garden.

          This was in my younger days when my husband would go off golfing for most of Saturday and I would be out in my gardens doing my thing.

          The next spring when he got home from golfing one day my husband did his pre-season maintenance on the lawn mower and other garden equipment. I had complained last fall about the tiller being finicky.  He worked on the tiller to surprise me and got it running. I was out grocery shopping, so he decided he better test drive it to see if he had fixed the choking out bit it had last fall. 

He took the tiller out to the vegetable garden.  He noticed some little tips of green [he thought they were weeds] and tilled the soil deeply, thoroughly chopping and dicing up those green tips and what he thought were nasty weed roots.  He was very proud of himself and felt he had done a fine job of tilling that avenue.  The tiller hadn’t choked out.  It was running in tip-top shape.

I got home with the groceries and was putting them away.  My husband said, “I fixed the tiller – it doesn’t choke out now.  I took it for a test drive.”

I look up from unpacking groceries and casually ask, “Tested it where?”

“Out in the vegetable garden, you had a lot of weeds coming up out there, I chopped them up good.”

My mind raced . . . what weeds in my vegetable garden?  It was totally pristine.  Not a weed in any of my five avenues – I just weeded it last week.  I stepped out onto the deck off the kitchen and from where I stood I could see the turned up soil in the center avenue.

“Oh my GOD, Oh my GOD – You’ve . . .  You’ve . . .” I screamed. 

I rushed out to the garden.  I was hysterical – absolutely over the top. I saw bits of creamy tulip bulb flesh here and there.

“How could you . . . how could you not have known those were tulips coming up?  Didn’t you notice the bulbs?”

“Yeah, see, I tilled all those roots too!” said my husband with pride.

“Those were tulips – 100 RED TULIPS. Tulips I planted last fall.  They are ruined!”  I screamed and cried.

He said, “It’s okay, I’ll just buy you more . . .”

I cut him off, “You don’t understand – they have to be planted in the fall in order to bloom in the spring!”  I left him in the garden.  I ran to the house for a good cry.

He knew he was in the “dog house”.

I eventually came up for air.  He didn’t know they were there.  They were meant as a big surprise – a big display to WOW him.  Often in the past he would say – ‘well you didn’t plant enough’ – so this time I wanted a BIG show.  It was going to be a ‘traffic stopping display.’

          Later when I calmed down I told him I knew he didn’t do it on purpose. But it still hurt.  NO RED TULIPS THIS YEAR!

          The next weekend my husband told his golfing buddies what he had done.  He loves to tell a great tale and said he had been sleeping with the dog in the dog’s bed all week.  Said I was about to kill him.  He wound it up more so that the boys at the club would have a grand old laugh at his expense.

          I am not sure who made the quip – my husband, or a friend of his – something like:  “You are not going to be able to kiss those two lips until she’s no longer sore about what you did to her tulips.”

          Since that incident we say tulips like “two lips” as a reminder of the incident.

Fast forward to the next fall.

          Again, I went for the big show stopper display. But, this time I showed my husband where I planted them with the “no touch,”  “off limits,” and further instruction of, “You can’t test the tiller unless I am home.”

Fast forward to the next spring.

          When the red tulips came into bloom we enjoyed them.  He went off golfing and an hour or so later I cut a bouquet of red tulips and took them to the golf course and put them in the Pro Shop near the cash register with a note on them, “Red Two Lips”.

          When my husband and his buddies came in from their round, my husband reminded them of his “dice and slice” of the fall two years ago and the fellas all had a good laugh again.