When the weather is getting colder and colder, I am actually looking into the promise of a colourful spring.

Spring bulbs, are currently or maybe have started a month ago being sold at most of nurseries or some warehouses. I bought mine at Go-Low, considered as a very cheap dollar shop but often provides quite lovely seasonal products for its customers. I really have nothing to complain but appreciate its inspiring ideas from time to time.

Well, this year I am going to try something really different, after I have gotten sick of protecting most of my frost-free plants from the cold winter here and moving them back and forth every night from outside to indoor for months’ time.

Now I have these spring bulbs, the bulbs that can grow into a whole park of Canberra Floriade Show each year, the bulbs give you stunning tulips, bright yellow daffodils in spring time, and the bulbs that mom and dad used to plant a lot in the water saucer before the Spring Festivals every year in China. Sometimes they even went to get experts to engrave the bulbs to make sure they would grow to a particular shape. In Chinese, this sort of bulbs is called “水仙”. In English it’s called Jonquil.

For some reason (out of blue), I always believed that growing bulbs is a difficult job. It must need advanced skills and of course a decent garden. I have never thought it could be done easily in containers, by a person who has very minimum gardening skills like me. Neither have I thought that spring bulbs actually enjoy coldness even frosts. (To be honest with you, I thought that all the plants will only grow well when it’s warm :-8)

When other people told me that this is probably the dead easiest plant for a gardener, I couldn’t believe it, until I read the instruction on the pack and checked the information on the Internet. Suddenly I feel like “I CAN DO IT” without all the possible fuss that I don’t want to get into.

So, I launched my first Spring Bulbs Series today after I planted 3 red tulips, 4 jonquils and 12 grape hyacinths in 2 pots. I watered them well after the planting and left them in the corner of our courtyard where is cool enough and won’t get direct sunshine.

I am now waiting to see what’s going to happen.

People said most of spring bulbs need a good dormant time, and as long as to keep the pot moist, they will start to grow root underneath, which probably can’t be seen from surface. To me, it’s like a storm brewing down under and finally one day it will burst out and give me the first growth after winter is gone. So I reckon after this first Spring Bulbs Diary, I won’t mention it for several months time.

Funnily enough, I mentioned my spring bulbs gardening plan to some of my colleagues the other day. They think I was like making a storm in a teacup. It seems that every people who has ever done some gardening in this country knows what spring bulbs are about and how to grow them successfully.

Well, it made me a bit embarrassed:-) Honestly, if one day in the next spring, I found those planted bulbs really had turned into something in front of my own eyes, to me, it would be still like a miracle.