My daughter has moved back to our hometown and she and her husband bought their first home last year. A fixer upper to say the least. They have the inside in hand (Oh, the energy of youth!) and are now turning their attention to their yard.

Like nearly everyone, their mantra is "Low Maintenance!" So we designed a front yard planting that has a minimum number of evergreens, a crape myrtle, some lantana for continuous summer color, and all the rest bulbs.

Naturally, her favorite shopping place is my yard. Several years ago, I bought one Mrs. James Hendry crinum bulb for $25.00. (gulp) It's my favorite crinum because the foliage is upright and neatly short, and it repeats blooms throughout the summer. Over the years, it has offset slowly but steadily. Two years ago, I robbed it of four baby bulbs to start another clump in my perennial border. Monday, I robbed that clump for my daughter. I had top dressed all the crinums with high quality manure last fall. That little clump of four had turned into 12 over one winter. We took six for her garden.

A planting of two dozen spider lilies 8 years ago has turned into hundreds. We took many gorgeous ones for her bed. Three clumps of Dutch Iris yielded enough for eight nice clumps for EACH of us.

Christmas amaryllis offset too. She got four beautiful bulbs of those. And then there is the front edge planted solid with rain lilies. (zephyranthes candida) I started those with two dozen bulbs about ten years ago.

Next week I will dig daffodils for her. It will do my old clumps good to be refreshed. And I am going to give her a few atamasco lilies from mine that need dividing.

Isn't that wonderful? I must say that God did a good thing when He created bulbs.