Around fifteen years ago my husband decided to transform a narrow wasteland, a long strip of our property alongside one of the sides of our house from an unprepossessing pallid grassy area to a long, narrow rock garden. It helped that the land sloped toward the back. So he ordered in a load of soil, another of rocks, and set to work. It took awhile and required plenty of physical effort, but that never, ever deterred my husband; when he had a vision of what he wanted to accomplish he simply set about doing it.

What resulted was a delightful rock garden that invited planting. First he placed a large Grecian-type stone urn on a plinth at the top of the rock garden he had put together, and that was no easy task, bullying such a weight into place. The very top, beside the house, was the only place in the rock garden that was flat and a perfect placement for the urn.

From that point on down we planed Hens & Chicks, Saxifrage, Columbine, Bleeding Heart, Eunonymus, a few low-growing Junipers, Periwinkle, Creeping Phlox, Creeping Jenny and once fall arrived a selection of spring-flowering bulbs like miniature tulips and  fritillaria. The Heuchera, Ladies Slippers and various Hostas, beloved of us both, were later additions.

I often, in the fall, would buy spring-flowering bulbs and plant them here and there in the garden beds. Decades ago, when I first began doing this, it seems to me I had far better luck in the outcomes, when the bulbs I had planted, in defiance of the squirrels which always delighted in digging them up and making off with them, seemed to come to brilliantly colourful and texturally delightful life in the spring.

Now, it appears the bulbs don't appreciate my efforts, and as a result their appearance or lack of it, has been disappointing. No matter, the tradition continues, because it's always so much fun to see what will come up, eventually. The alliums are never disappointing, the grape hyacinths and crocuses always appear. But narcissus and various types of tulips either forget to awaken in the spring, or when they do they appear as poor specimens barely worth the trouble of planting.

This year I decided I'd not plant any bulbs at all. But when were having a late-season last look through one of the nurseries we frequent, I happened to see packets of Blue Poppy anemones, and anemones are yet another kind of spring flowering surprise that continue to make their presence in our gardens, so I swooped one up, put it away on one of the garage shelves with the intention of planting them in the fall.

But then what intervened was a family-shattering event that kept my mind and my body busy for months. So it wasn't until Friday that I came across that package by chance, and recalled buying it. At this point we'd already had plenty of snow, but it had melted. The soil in the garden beds was partially frozen. But last Friday was a pleasant enough day, just a mite above freezing, heavily overcast, with light freezing rain.

So out came a spade and the package of anemones and I began working the soil to find suitable places to plant the Blue Poppies. Spring will tell the rest of the story.