As I pour through the bulb catalogs every summer, it strikes me that creating a fresh plan every year is like being a painter and having a new palette of colors to work with. While I am loyal to many favorites, there’s always a side of me that wants to experiment. Granted, my lofty ideas don’t always pan out in the fashion that I had hoped–it is difficult to achieve the perfection captured in the catalogs–but the very act of trying new varieties and combinations makes for an exciting challenge.

By mid-fall, I have to shift from dreamy planner to taskmaster as bulb planting dominates the to-do list.

Outdoors, tulips and hyacinths, which are pulled and replaced each year, must be set according to plan in the perennial border, white garden, potager, and cutting garden; crocuses, fritillaries, irises, scillas, and alliums will also find a home in one of those borders.

Indoors, amaryllis and paperwhites need to be potted to bloom for the holidays and to give as gifts. Hundreds of daffodils must be added to the two-acre apple orchard, a stage large enough to humble the thousands of naturalized bulbs that have been previously planted.

Although we are up to our elbows in bulbs, the planting part goes quickly because preparation work is completed. Scores of terra-cotta pots have been scrubbed and sterilized. Potting soil has been mixed and is on hand. Shovels have been cleaned and sharpened.

In less than a week, a miracle is accomplished­–all the potting and planting is done.