Angela88: Although I mainly concur with the several responses already posted, I'll contribute my thoughts as well. 1.) It has been my experience that Tulips - generally - have a "bad" habit of rapidly dividing. When I substantially re-constructed my first new garden area (see the story below), I noted that many tulips that I had planted three years previously had whittled down to the size of the end of my small finger. Obviously, at that size they didn't have sufficient energy to come into bloom; 2.) In conjunction with this "habit" of "rapid" division - rapid in comparison with daffodils, these tulips were attempting to "grow" and "re-bloom" in a clayish soil structure; not the ideal soil structure; 3.) Under such soil clayish conditions no amount of "horticultural drug dealing", especially methods of "overdosing" - excessive water and fertilizer is going to make them "perform" year after year as well as they should; 4.) I therefore came to the conclusion that I should provide them with the best possible soil conditions and went to the lengths discussed in the story below; 5.) I also came to the conclusion that I am going to limit my use of tulips in the garden. Although I thoroughly enjoy their company in the spring, they are, after all, much like pregnant women on the way to the hospital delivery room - i.e. they are guarenteed to bloom in their first year. By the second year, they will most likely diminish in bloom stature and quantity; and by the third year, they will diminish even further; 6.) Thus a deeply prepared, humusy and sufficiently well drained soil is absolutely necessary for their potential survival; 7.) The planting of tulips in a compacted and poorly drained soil structure will also potentially cause the bulbs to rot away - depending upon the amount rainfall provided by Mother Nature or your own watering efforts. 8.) The use of organic mulches - given a good soil structure might go a long way to provide the needed moisture requirements for your summer flowering plants while, at the same time, keep the tulips "happy". 9.) For that and all of the other reasons above, I am not certain that I would plant tulips in the same bed as roses - simply because their summer care is different. Tulips and many other spring flowering bulbs are not heat tolerant and thus "disappear" or go dormant until they make their return visit in our gardens. 10.) Since you also mentioned the fact that "many of my roses did not survive our Michigan winter" makes me wonder if you had planted "grafted" rose bushes and/or mostly modern roses such as the Hybrid teas. 11.) Having experienced far too many disastrous encounters with Mother Nature on the central Illinois prairie, I - long ago - made the more rewarding switch to what is known as the "Antigue" or "Old Garden Roses" grown on their own roots. Now that I am living in northwestern Michigan, I have opted for own root roses and have planted several OGR's and David Austin Roses. They have been in the ground for three years and have suffered minimal cane loss, if at all. If you are unaware of the range of "Antique" or "Old Garden Roses", I would highly recommend the reading of The Fragrant Year by Helen Van Pelt Wilson and Leonie Bell. Although it has been out of print for a few years, it is still one of the best introductions to this world of roses. And as an additional treat, there is an excellent chapter on the making of the old rose dry and moist forms of potpourri. In addition to this excellent gem, you might also explore the following links - they are just a few of the sources avaiable to you. Heritage Roses Group High Country Roses Heirloom Roses Ashdown Roses David Austin Roses Griffith Buck Roses FYI - Griffith Buck roses are also available from several of the sources listed above as well. Now for the "story". The story below was written in response to a garden question posted in the "Perennial" Forum. I thought you might enjoy one of my own "learning experiences" in the garden while I was living on the tallgrass prairie of central Illinois. Hope all of this information is most useful. Bill When I posted the following sentence from a lengthy quotation from Lewis Mumfords "The City in History": "One works co-operatively with the Âmaterials of othersÂ, perhaps guiding them, but first acknowledging their existence and understanding their purpose: the other, that of the baroque despot, insisting upon his law, his order, his society, is imposed by a single professional authority, working under his command." I was using the phrase the "materials of others" etc. with regard to gardening from the siting of the garden area, to good, deep soil preparation, to the plants selected for the area, to their planting, care, and nurture. etc. When "gfult" posted her comments about "removing the grass and digging out the soil was so much work", I thought IÂd offer the following story about my own efforts on soil preparation. Several decades ago - when Crockett was still hosting "The Victory Garden" - my daughter, Heather, and I spent much of a day "planting" a semi-circular bulb garden around a lamp post in the front yard. The diameter of the garden was 14 feet and its radius was 7 feet. A semi-circular "fan" shaped design around a lamp post that was topped by an electrified old steam locomotive signal lamp that my father had obtained. My fatherÂs brothers and brother-in-laws had a history of being engineers and/or telegraphers. Prior to the actual digging out of this newly planned garden area, I had poured over a half dozen or so bulb catalogs and books on gardening - noting the bloom sequences, the height, the color of each bulb that I wanted to add to our newly planned garden area. When the plan actually came into fruition, I had every bulb situated - in my head - and knew where it was supposed to go - once we had prepared the soil. So one day in the fall, we spent part of a late morning "preparing" the soil by digging down to a depth of about 8 - 10 or so inches; then adding a few 40 pound bags each of peat moss and cow manure and then with the aid of a spade and spading fork attempted to mix all of this meager stuff into the clayish soil we had just dug out. We then went to "work" with two of those typical bulb planters that are - sometimes - of little or no use and planted the bulbs - leaving enough space for other plant material - of course. Because of the poor structure of this "soil", we often had to use both hands, some good muscle power, and a great deal of body weight/strength to work the bulb planter into the ground in order to plant the bulbs. Far too much work in my mind - now. When we completed our very tiring work, we went inside, made supper, relaxed and ate our dinner while watching Crockett's Victory Garden then still on the air. Wouldn't you know it; his program that early evening was on the planting of bulbs and he, of course, described and showed how "easy" it was to plant bulbs with the use of the bulb planter. Heather and I just looked at each other in some disgust - at least, Crockett's soil had been deeply and well prepared so that his bulb planter cut through the soil with the ease of a warm knife cutting through room temperature butter. WouldnÂt it be nice, if the garden we had just worked at planting had that kind of soil structure. Indeed it would be nice. Well - true to their nature - many spring flowering bulbs are much like pregnant women on their way to the hospital, our bulbs came up tried and true and bloomed very well in their first spring. We couldnÂt have been more pleased with our "hard" efforts. In their second year, the bulbs were much less in number and the bulbs that remained didn't bloom as profusely. By the third year, many of bulbs with the few exception of daffodils had simply petered out or had disappeared - altogether. Obviously, "something" was wrong with this situation. Of course, those three years did not lack in increased knowledge and/or gardening experience. I had by that time read John MadsonÂs book "Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie" (an important read for those gardening on the tallgrass prairie) and the Brooklyn Botanic GardenÂs wonderful little book on "Handbook on Soils" (a gem that should be never out of print). John Madson - "Where the Sky Began: Land of the Tallgrass Prairie" Unfortunately, this little gem is currently out of print, but hereÂs the link to their wonderful array of publications: Brooklyn Botanic Garden - Publications Buried within the pages of the BBGÂs "Handbook on Soils" (70's edition), was a revealing photograph of the significant difference between the root growth of plants growing in a deeply and well prepared soil and those growing in a compacted soil. I have often sought a similar photographic comparison on the web, but havenÂt as yet been able to located such a wonderful comparison. John MadsonÂs book made me fully appreciate and realize the weather and soil conditions - to name a few -under which I was then gardening. For that area of the country, I came to realize the necessity and the preference of planting rootstock material in the late summer or early fall with in ground fertilization techniques - mostly to substantially aid the new plants sustain their first hot and humid prairie summers. What I also came to realize was the fact that our house was situated about 1.5 to 2 feet above the street level. Since the house was built in the late 1930's this area - just west of Peoria, IL - the land upon which the house was built used to be old farm land and that the golden soil of good deep prairie loam lay beneath the garden. I also came to learn that tulips have a bad habit of dividing more profusely than daffodils and because of the structure of the soil, many of them had simply divided down into a diameter much less than the size of the tip of my smaller fingers. Daffodils faired a tad bit better, but they didn't increase in number either. And because of the clayish structure of the soil, a goodly number had simply died, because the structure wasn't loose enough and/or deep enough to allow for good root growth and the obtainment of good nourishment for future bloom. In effect, our bulbs were planted with a clay soil "straight jacket" around them. Under such soil conditions, no amount of "horticultural drug dealing" would have offered a "cure" to the "ills" of a poorly prepared or structured soil. Although I didnÂt entirely look forward to the project, I knew that I didnÂt want to look forward to more "horticultural disappointments" By that time, I had also come to the conclusion that being a "horticultural drug dealer" was not the way to go. If the plants donÂt have access to a very good soil structure, no amount of chemical "encouragement" is going to make them perform well. So in the late summer of the third year, I outlined two garden areas - the former semi-circular one noted above and another garden area - 16 feet in diameter and went to work once again and kept on digging and digging and digging until I hit the good deep prairie loam that I knew lay beneath the clay soil - the "remains" of the basement of my parentÂs house. A few people driving by our slow street stopped and inquired as to whether I had a "water" problem of some sort. When I informed them that I was deeply and well preparing the soil structure of two garden areas, I believe that they were either dumbfounded by my efforts and/or thought me to be slightly nutty. Oh well, at least my gardening efforts "entertained" some folks in their travels. Once I reached the good prairie loam beneath the clayish soil - about 22 to 24 inches down - I, obviously, had a new "problem" to confront. And that "problem" was: How on earth I am going to easily create a loose, friable, humus, and well prepared soil structure without too much effort? The prospects of adding some of the clay soil and mixing it with some aged cow manure, sphagnum peat moss, a little coarse sand with the aid of only a shovel and spading fork didnÂt greatly appeal to me. But then a "lightbulb" went off in my head and I thought of the idea of renting a cement mixer to rapidly mix the new soil ingredients. Before I actually employed the cement mixer, I obtained 14 six cubic foot bales of sphagnum peat moss. A friend of mine lent me his small pickup truck and informed me of a farmer friend of his who would gladly "share" two truck loads of aged cow manure. Since I knew that the addition of fine sand to a clay soil would make for a good Âconcrete mix especially under dry conditions, I was able to obtain a small truckload of coarse sand from a local sandpit located a few miles away. At the time, I didnÂt realize how heavy sand could be and had some difficulty navigating RogerÂs truck back from the sandpit with semi-flattened tires. But I made it. Once all of the "ingredients" were available, I then rented the cement mixer and took a small rubbermaid wash tub and a less than 1 pound coffee can and began to create the new soil structure. A can or two of the original soil, a can or two or three of the sphagnum peat moss, a can or two of the aged cow manure and mixed the ingredients all together until I got the soil mixture that I wanted. I then "translated" the coffee can proportions into shovefuls, turned on the rented cement mixer and went to work. After the cement mixer had more than sufficiently done its job, I off loaded the mix into a wheelbarrow, dumped the contents into the large holes and went back to work mixing up another batch of soil. When I finished with the last of the mixture, Heather and I went back to "work" the next day and literally "played" in the soil to plant our bulbs, old fashioned roses, peonies, etc. It was 'child's play' and we performed our work far easier than had James Crockett in planting bulbs. Without exception, we planted everything with our bare hands - the new soil was that loose, friable, and humusy. Since the soil structure was now deeply and well prepared, all that was or is really needed is the application - every year or so - of some good organic mulch - ala Ruth Stout - and, perhaps, some fertilizer now and the. In my personal case, I made use of the organic mulch - provided cheaply or without cost - by our local light & power company - the ground up leaves, branches and stems of the trees they pruned during the summer months. Of course, with this type of organic mulch you will have some "weed" problems, but with 4 - 6 inches of it around the garden, it is quite easy to gently pull of the emerging weeds and thus remove them from the garden. So hereÂs another interesting book you should read and enjoy. It will make your post soil preparation and future gardening efforts all that much easier. Ruth Stout - "How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back" Well, now that I have reached the young age of 64, I am not entirely certain that I want to involve myself in another extensive soil structure project; IÂd probably hire it done, if needed or do a Mark Twain thing and talk an unsuspecting student into such a project. ;>) But since I moved from central Illinois to northwestern Michigan, I find that our soil here in Michigan is a mixture of fairly decent garden loam mixed in with some clay and sand. Not too bad for most planting material that I wish to include in our garden. The "moral" of this story is basically doing your "homework" as well as possible from the beginning before the actual implementation of a new garden area. Obviously, not everything will go "exactly as planned", but a thoughtful consideration of the "materials of others" will go a very long way in insuring the successful rise of a worthwhile garden endeavor. Again, my very best wishes in your creative efforts of nurturing life in its many dimensions. Bill

Hmmm. Well, VanZyverdens (they supply retailers all over the country) here in Meridian had their final clearanace sale all through the month of November. I went the first day and promptly took home 2 or 3 hundred and planted them. THEN a friend of mind called me to accompany her to the final day of the sale (last week) to "help" her. Came home with MORE. Naturally, it has rained everyday since. No matter. I put the tulips in the refrigerator and the narcisus are out in the garage. We had a killing frost the day after Thanksgiving, so as soon as it dries out, I'll "roll up" the last of the lantanas, cupheas, and hyacinth beans. That will make room for the new additions. I'm going to be out putting up Christmas decorations anyway...:) By the way, get a load of this. At the sale, I bought 100 Spring Green tulips, and 15 dozen named jonquils for $26!!!! Of course, this is why my addiction is so out of control...

Temps are predicted to drop significantly into the teens over the next 3 to 5 days and snow for tomorrow night and Saturday. Only an inch though. Not enough to cover and do much good. But then next week sometime it's supposed to go back up into the 40s again! What a crazy winter! Snow fall amounts are less than half what it was last year at this time and days above freezing are more than twice as many. I watered my roses today! We haven't had any significant precipitation in several weeks and it has been very sunny the last few days so I thought maybe they'd like a drink. I also think they'll fare better in the cold snap if they're well hydrated. I had to lug gallon jugs of water out, ugh! If this weather does keep on like this I'm going to ask his nibbs to hook the hose back up!

Today was a perfect day for planting, and I AM FINISHED!!!! I don't know what the temperature was, but it took about 5 minutes to trade the jeans and sweatshirt for shorts and a tee. After digging, I even went barefoot! Today I really appreciated the last owner of our property, whcih only goes back to the 1960's. Bless his heart, he had a nursery here, and the digging in the yard (around the stump of an old crabapple that we cut down several years ago) was so easy. The shovel would go all the way in in one step. I found an old iron block and tackle, and an old sledge hammer head buried right next to the stump. Maybe tomorrow I'll go dig for the metal box with the gold coins in it....... Barbara, looking forward to a great night's sleep....