Arrr, we are down to 10 this morning. Love the company.

Wish we had gotten that warm, hovered around -5 for a while, then shot all the way up to 5 degrees. Supposed to be a balmy 12 degrees tomorrow morning, not helped by the 5 inches of snow we got yesterday.

Not to worry, there is going to be a decent warmup in the next week or so. In any case, there are a number of ways to deal with planting bulbs if the ground is frozen. You can fill black plastic trash bags with leaves and put them over the area you want to plant. The sun will warm this up enough to thaw the ground, usually in a day or two. If only the top layer is frozen, a good garden fork will break that up, giving you access to the unfrozen dirt. You can pour boiling water over the area, but I find that makes a total mess. Works for some people, though. You can also do the 'if you can't dig, don't dig' thing, put the bulbs where you want them on the top of the ground, and cover with 5-6 inches of thawed compost, dirt, or even potting soil or mulch. It's not ideal, but in a pinch it will work. I always keep a couple of bags of mulch and a decent pile of dry compost in a sheltered area for just such situations.

Most of my bulbs are from Van Engelen. I've always gotten healthy, good quality bulbs from them. Never ordered any from their sale, which seems late to plant for me, but you've given some good tips on how to do it. By this time I'm burned out on planting and have so much clean up to do, but those prices are kind of tempting. :-)

The other thing I love about their sales is that they go in with John Scheepers, their sister company, and dig out things from the warehouses that have been marked as sold out. So those expensive bulbs that you wanted, but that were too expensive, not to mention sold out, are now available again and at a much nicer price. It's also when I purchase any bulbs I plan to force, especially hyacinth, muscari, crocus, and miniature daffodils.