One might say that in life, as well as in the garden, it is usually more productive to look forward than to look back.
Not that the past does not inform the future, of course it does. But now as I plant my bulbs, I am utterly focused on next year's garden. The memory of last summer's flowers is erased, and my mind is on the flowers yet to bloom. It will be a wonderful spring for me next year, full of masses of daffodils and tulips and those wonderful big purple allium globes.
My newest passion is for camassias with spikes of blue that are larger than, and bloom later than, the tiny blue scilla.
I am now digging big wide round holes and placing lots of bulbs of different sizes and bloom times all together at differing depths. Crocus and dwarf daffodils followed by dark, almost black, Queen of the Night tulips and blue grape hyacinth. And there are swathes of white anemones, commonly called windflowers, with their innocent daisy flowers.
As I plant I revel in the images of flowers yet to come. Bulbs, like children, help us to imagine the future.