Bulbs

Violas waiting to be planted.

Tilling and blowing.

We began planting our bulbs today. I usually fill my color beds with tulips or daffodils. Without fail when I plant a lot of tulips they will all bloom during the week of SMU's spring break so no one is here to see them. I did find one variety, 'World's Favorite,' that blooms early and is red so I use a lot of it. Last year I used daffodils in every bed because they bloom earlier than spring break. Plus they don't get the aphid infestations that tulips can get. This year, I'm not sure why, I went back to tulips. I am using tulips in all the beds. It's a gamble. We will cover the bulbs with pansies and violas. Those damn pansies! In order to fight off about four different fungi and aphids we will end up spraying them four or five times while they are in the ground. Sometimes they will still succumb.

Laying out tulip bulbs at Perkins Chapel. The mix we are planting is mix in bloom in the picture above.

Laying out bulbs requires some thought so it has proven extemely difficult for the crew. I have done most of the laying out by myself each year. It takes so much time. I would get certain people to help me a little each year in the hopes that they would eventually be able to do it without me. This was the first year that I felt four of the guys were ready to help. Yes it took four years. In the picture above we are using four different bulbs. I lay down the first variety, then someone does the second, someone else the third, fourth, etc. We lay them down in the same order row after row. With each new bulb they get confused as to where to put it. This job has taught me such patience.

Planting bulbs.

Rosebel, Ek, and Roberto

Pete and Abraham laying out bulbs at Dallas Hall.

The Christmas tree went up yesterday.

Sign in Main Quad lawn. These signs drive me crazy. They are so ugly.

Here's my problem with the signs. We work tirelessly to remove every piece of trash from this campus only to have these trashy signs installed. In addition to being ugly, sign in this picture is blocking an irrigation rotor. Most of the signs are on wooden stakes. On the wooden ones the paper sign is laminated and should be attached to the stake using roofing nails. This requirement is in the form the student groups sign to get approval to put their signs out. They never use a roofing nail so the signs come off the stake and blow around campus like trash, as trash. I recently bought 3000 roofing nails and took them to the room where they assemble these signs. It helped only a little. I drive around campus everyday and remove all the signs that are assembled with staples, duct tape, nails, putty, etc. I could go on and on. If anyone is actually reading this rant I apologize for wasting your time on a subject that is probably interesting only to me. Maybe I will do a post about poorly constructed stake signs.