Wednesday, May 13, 2020 Tulips, aka Deer Salad

Years ago we bought a whole bunch of tulip bulbs and planted them around our berm in the fall. We thought we were making a garden display of beautiful colors. Instead, it turns out that we were providing a delicious midnight feast for the deer in the spring. Some tulips always came up, but it seemed that each year, the tulip salad bar got more popular with our Bambi friends. We found something called “Deer Scram” and sprinkled it liberally around the tulips. This concoction consists of animal blood, meat meal (whatever that is), garlic, pepper and clove and is designed to give the deer a reason to pause and go to the neighbor’s tulip salad bar instead. It only lasts until it rains, however, which necessitated us remembering to reapply the stuff. Eventually, the tulips lost heart in the whole existential crisis of their lives and mostly quit showing up. A few years ago, we had all the plantings on the berm removed (it had become a wildly successive weed garden) and seeded it back to grass.

I took this photo of the only two tulips in our yard this year. They are volunteers that have been showing up in the same spot year after year, apparently under the radar of the deer (shhh…don’t tell!). I salute them and give hearty thanks to the Lord of the Tulips for making something so ravishingly beautiful. Spring is a fetching lass, indeed.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning. Thanks for reading my blog. Assuming someone is, in fact, reading it.