Planting Bulbs and Facing Aging

A Gen X Gardener's Perspective on Feeling Young While Adapting to How Fast We Change

Every Christmas, I share a favorite story from my childhood on a farm in the 1970s. "Chimney Fire Christmas" is a bit sentimental, and I'd love new readers to enjoy it. But today, I'm feeling all the years that have passed, so I want to tell a different story.

Planting Paperwhites As A Spry Young Man

I am at 58, mentally still that spry young man who used to squat on my haunches in the dirt, planting spring bulbs. But Damn. The reality, the difference in my body, seems to have changed overnight. I can do, just not the way I used to do.

Last week, I planted thousands of bulbs. I even got enthusiastic and called my old friend, my bulb broker, and ordered a few thousand more. Planting bulbs connects me to the earth physically. Being down near, on the ground, squirming around, lets me see sleepy worms, creeping fungus, and living layers in the soil. It's intimate and connecting. From down there, I can see where the bulbs need to go. Things not visible from standing. For example, down here, I can see that under the now dormant Japanese Kerria Rose, there is a spot of sun hitting the ground. I know I need to dig a hole right there and fill it with these tiny onions, and in May, the burnt purple drumstick allium will be subtle and spectacular, poking up through the golden Keria flowers.

Drumstick Allium with Yarrow in May

Garden Squatting. Like a Buddhist Monk or a Frog

Over the decades, I've planted millions of bulbs with hundreds of people. Back in my days as a botanical garden curator, I was often the young guy working with a team of volunteers. I remember one of them who loved allium telling me, "Boy, you look like a Buddhist monk, sitting on his haunches praying." She tightened her silver ponytail, watched me from her garden stool, and said, "That or a frog."

I thought of her last week while bulb planting as I worked from my favorite garden stool. Yeah, time flies. No more monk squats for me. I have a catheter now, and that would pull two tubes apart faster than you could say leapfrog. If I try kneeling, I might just pop the bag like a water balloon.

Keeping the Catheter Tubes Clean

My doctor probably doesn't really understand what I do or how dirty it is. He thinks garden design, the career listed on my forms, means computers or drawing paper or something. He tells me, "Keep those tubes clean!" Before going to see him, I wash them down with windex and soap. 

At the end of last week, after bulb planting but before seeing him, I scrubbed up. My husband of 20 years, Tom, drove us onto the I-95 ramp. We were headed to the Mayo Clinic for my transperineal prostate biopsy. I took a big swig of antioxidant yaupon tea and he said, "If you need a bathroom before Brunswick, let me know."

But I don't need a bathroom break. Ever. That's one advantage of a catheter.

How Fast Our Bodies and Lives Change

Reality changes overnight. The next morning, we pass through sleek sliding glass doors into the bougie waiting room of Mayo prostate center and I see a few older men as expected. But I'm struck by all the Gen X men like me. We're the new clientele here. I look around at them and wonder, how many of them have collapsible garden stools? What accommodations do they make in life, for the speed at which life changes?

Byzantine gladiolus have lived in our pasture longer than I’ve been alive!

And a Few Final Notes:

Pro-tip: Yes Wee Can!

Urine is a great fertilizer, so we folks in the gardening-cath community can easily open a handy valve and give our favorite bulbs a healthy squirt! If 10% of the US population collected their urine, an estimated 330 tonnes of nitrogen and 20 tonnes of phosphorus a day could be retrieved!

A Southern Garden Secret is that Now is the Time to Plant Bulbs

If you live in the South, January and February is bulb planting season. For some of our new Southerners, that may seem really weird and late. But it’s true. I love May flowering bulbs, so we have a great selection of them ready to ship now. Click here to see our bulb selection, photos and read more.

Health Update

On Christmas morning, I got a message from the Mayo doc that I am cancer free! There’s still some need for surgery and will be some winter downtime. Thanks to you all for your concern and support!