The Case of the Missing Tulip Bulbs

Every fall, I slide dreamily into my Maud Muller phase. She’s the John Greenleaf Whittier young woman who swept the meadow sweet with hay. I see myself in a Watteau hat with blue velvet streamers falling over my shoulder among my saucy red curls. I have never had a hat even remotely like that except for a big leghorn with silk poppies, which I wore to garden weddings that seem to have disappeared along with meadows.

But I am staunch and every year I allow myself to become convinced that I can so raise wonderful flowers from bulbs, even ranunculuses with bulbs that look like petrified tarantulas.

I am sure that the King Alfred jonquils will come up with blossoms as big as pot lids. They never have, although there have been years when some poor little wizened things have struggled through the adobe.

The only bulb flowers I ever planted that really came up and bloomed were tulips. I later found from the lady across the street that I had planted mine upside down. Or one of us had because when I watched her, she was putting the fat end down into the hole. I had put the pointed end down so the bulb could burrow soundly into the ground. Anyway, I had beautiful tulips and the neighbor lady had none and there is a little note of triumph there for those of us who can’t read directions.

That was years ago in La Habra Heights when Doug was here to dig the holes. Heaven knows he couldn’t tell if I were putting the things upside down or not. I have told you that no man with whom I have ever been closely associated has had any mechanical ability unless you count meat carving. Daddy could carve. But with Doug in the garden with me, I was delighted when he picked up the shovel by the handle.

Why, years later, I should have been seized by the belief that I could raise bulbs, I do not know. But last fall, I trotted off to the nursery and bought daffodils and tulips. The young man gave me a sheet of paper printed in four colors which showed the months and the depths that each bulb should be planted. The daffodils went in first. I just went out to the side of the hill and nothing is there but ice plant and dandelions. Not a spear.

And two weeks ago, it was time to plant the tulips. I have acquired the help of a young man named Fernando who seems very knowledgeable and I decided to entrust him with the tulip bulbs. They had been in the refrigerator drawer all this time because that is what the sheet of paper said to do. I had bought two dozen and they had been sleeping soundly all winter in a plastic bag.

When I went to get them for Fernando there was no sack. There were only three lonely tulip bulbs. I have never been very steady on shallots, so at first I thought they might be shallots. But they, I believe, are clustered in pie-shaped pieces like garlic. Of course, I know white onions and green and purple and Spanish but I don’t really know shallots except in the cookbooks I don’t use very often because they tell me to use things like bain marie.

I took the three tulips out to Fernando and asked him if he could please plant them for me. I’m sure he wondered why I bothered but he took them pleasantly.

Now, there have been a number of people in and out of the kitchen over the holidays including Muff and Mandy, Patsy’s daughters, but Muff is an excellent cook and would know a shallot from a tulip and Mandy only opens the refrigerator for pate or ice.

But there are 21 tulip bulbs and a plastic sack missing. Someone has carefully chopped them into a stew or a comforting caldron of soup on a cold day. There is no other explanation.

I know oleanders will kill you and several other things cause severe stomach upsets to man and beast. But please don’t anyone tell me that tulip bulbs are poisonous.

It is far too late to think about that. Do you suppose that time after Christmas when we thought the eggnog had clabbered and we were all clutching our middles that we were suffering from tulip scourge?

I do not intend to think about this any more. I prefer to think they perked up a beef burgundy or livened up an omelet. One thing’s sure, I will not tiptoe through those tulips.