Middle NZ: Tulips have no chance against wild wind

Tulips put up mighty battle with the wind. Photo / File

COMMENT

LInda Hall

Why does the wind always blow when the tulips bloom.

I've watched these beautiful spring bulbs push their way through the dirt in my garden.

For days I'd been keeping my eye on them along with the poppies.

I watched them grow with a smile on my face

It was a competition to see which would flower first _ tulips or the poppies. The poppies had their flower buds hanging toward the ground on their long elegant stems and the tulips were starting to form flowers.

The tulips won. I only have about three. They have been in the garden for years but it's only been in the last three or four years that they seem to have really established themselves.

The bright yellow flowers, like daffodils herald spring and the promise of warmer days to come.

I was a tad disappointed with my daffodils this year. I planted heaps of them and while some never even showed their faces most of them that did didn't flower.

I must have planted at least 30 bulbs and would have been lucky if I got six flowers.

Someone told me that some times they 'sulk' for a year. Fingers crossed for next spring.

So I was really hoping for better things with the tulips and poppies.

At last the tulips bloomed and a few days behind them three poppies a pink, orange and white opened their 'faces' to the world.

Then, right on queue along came the wind.

Not just on one day but several. The gallant tulips stood their ground, dancing in the wind, as did the poppies.

However, yesterday's wild wind was just too much for the poor tulips. The put up a mighty battle but by late afternoon petals were ripped off or left bruised and hanging. There's still one to open so hopefully it will have a better life.

The orange poppy lost a petal but the other two have so far survived.

Linda Hall, assistant editor, Hawke's Bay Today.

It's not the first time it's happened of course.

Spring brings with it beautiful blooms and unpredictable weather. We go from 22 degrees with smiles on our faces as we imagine the summer just on the horizon to blustery, cold, rainy days which makes me think summer's a way off yet.

The way the year has gone so far nothing would surprise me.

I did, however, get a huge surprise this week when I was lining up at a store.

I pulled my wallet out of my handbag and saw something moving on it.

It was a huge cockroach. It took all of my self control not to scream.

I didn't want people to see stare at "the lady pulling a cockroach out of her bag". Yuk. I shook my wallet and it scuttled away — don't worry it wasn't a food store.

The horrible little creatures are everywhere at the moment. I saw a programme on telly recently about a cockroach farm in China. It housed more than one billion cockroaches.

Apparently, it's a very lucrative occupation. They are fed food waste before being ground up for animal feed.

Think I'll stick with our worm farm for the food scraps and the garden loves the resulting liquid.

Maybe next year I'll plant some more tulips and then they can huddle together — it just might give them a bit of protection from the elements.

* Linda Hall is assistant editor at Hawke's Bay Today