barefoot in the garden

I do like the day I can paint my toe-nails for the the first time in the year and find a tulip to match the colour (the bright satin-pink 'Mariette'). This little piece of garden folly made me think about the film Barefoot in the Park (1967) which I haven't seen for ages but which sticks in my mind for two things; Jane Fonda going barefoot in New York and the jaw-dropping gorgeousness of Robert Redford. And this is from a woman who still maintains that the wrong man (Robert Redford) got the girl in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). It should have been Paul Newman, with his startlingly blue eyes and bicycle tricks. Don't you think?

                      ***

Each morning I go to the tulip patch and pick bunches for photography and display. The kitchen windowsill is beginning to resemble a seventeenth-century Dutch still-life, the kind that teems and overflows with feathered, stripy, brilliant tulips. This is what the bulb patch looked like when Simon was planting it last December:

and this is how it looks now. And that's after I've been through with the secateurs.

And this gives an idea of the scale of the planting task:

Simon may not have piercing blue eyes, but he's nifty on a bike, and the best bulb-planter I know.

Comments

[tayloe]

absolutely beautiful Jane! Thanks for sharing it. Hang on to that man!

[Amy]

I love "Barefoot in the Park". It is one of a handful of movies I can watch over and over again. For me, it inspires me to try new things (thinking of the Armenian restaurant scene), and hey, so does your blog, Jane! Thank you!

[Kathleen]

Thank you so much for posting these ravishing photos. Here in Boston it is a very cold and rainy spring--the daffodils are barely flowering and the tulips are merely stumpy green spears in the bare beds--but I have the vicarious pleasure of your garden.

I'm still painting my toenails a wintry brown :(

Kathleen

[Cathleen]

Pretty pink piggies and tulips!!! No wonder you are so excited about your garden...this would be a breathtakingly beautiful site to view each and every day...lucky you!

[Rebecca]

Oh such favourite films of mine and I agree on Paul Newman, humming "Raindrops keep falling on my head" now.

Your tulip patch is fabulous and I love that you gather them to enjoy indoors too. I am always torn, to pick or not to pick. The varieties you grow are so much more exciting than those available in Tescos!

[Gemma]

OH MY WORD! That is a torment of digging and planting! Lovely but my word what a job. Simon is deffo a keeper even if he is lacking in the blue eyed department. G has the blue eyes but is hopeless in the garden. When you are dealing with the torment of digging in December blue eyes don't seem quite so attractive! :-)

[Dorothy B]

I bet Simon would love Ottawa's Tulip Festival. Especially since he wouldn't have to plant them all.

The garden is beautiful. Simon did a great job with the planting.

[Laurel]

I see all those tulips and all I can let out is a breathy, "Oh." So lovely.

[vicky]

wow! What a fantastic tulip patch and what a good bulb-planter.I hate planting the bulbs and have not enlisted my own bulb-planter, so I have to make do with a small patch.

[Susan]

Your tulips are just stunning.

[Cindy]

Amazing! Here in Northern New England the only sign of spring is the snow is mostly melted thanks to days of rain. Your tulips are beautiful and abundant, thanks for sharing.

[Marie]

Great way to have fresh cut flowers (tulips) everyday!

[Alice Saltiel-Marshall]

Huge thanks for granting permission to use your tulip photos as painting reference. I'm in awe of your tulip patch, God love Simon for planting it! May we see a still life with some of those magenta ones near the top of the last photo? And yes, Paul Newman should have got Catherine Ross.

[Robin]

hahahahaha...thanks for sharing Jane...you have lovely toes and tulips!

[Ruth]

What a man - to plant such a breathtaking expanse of tulips! Most definitely Mr. Right.

[Natalie B]

I'm a Dutch girl, so I can never get enough tulips!

[Julia]

Your tulip garden is so beautiful!
Those are two of my favourite films.When I was a teenager I was in love with Paul Newman.Barefoot in the Park always makes me laugh and cry and Robert Redford is amazingly handsome in it :-)

[Dea]

Wow that is amazing! Crazy cool! I have only had a garden for 1,5 years now, and only about 15 square meters of it! But I am loving it!

[MargotK]

Well, Simon knows the secret to bringing Jane home.....no putting her in a pumpkin shell to keep her very well...its the tulips!! but plenty of them, and a great variety of named beauties that will make her swoon. What a guy. Lucky you. Lucky yard that is the beauty of all. Enjoy completely! When I began my severe allergy problems I could only look out the window at my beauties thru binoculars to absorb the color and shapes.But I did.

[Cindy]

Maybe I will have to switch out some of my rose beds for tulips! Yours are fantasic.

[Lorie]

That is so beautiful! What an inspiration. (and the toes are ok too!)
Butch Cassidy is also a fave around here, as is 'The Sting' w/Redford and Newman. Tons of eye candy! Happy Spring!

[Joan]

Just gorgeous - the tulips, that is. I'm no fetishist.

Your blog is a treat. I love your images and your reflections and the eye-searing vividness of your photos.
More tulips, please.

[Maritza]

Simply - wow! I love your garden.

[danielle]

I saw the Broadway "revival" of Barefoot in the Park last winter, with Patrick Wilson and Amanda Peet. Patrick was lovely, but he was no Robert Redford.....
I can almost smell the earth when I see those gorgeous tulips all in a row. Happy Spring!

[Kirstie]

What a gorgeous garden! I can't wait until everything here in Toronto starts turning green again. Thanks for sharing a piece of your spring!