Planting bulb wellies

 
I've been thinking about Nigel Colborn's shoes for nearly six months.  In case you're worried, no, I have not developed some weird footwear fetish nor have I started stalking the horticultural aristocracy, it was just that on his ever-entertaining silvertreedaze blog, Mr Colborn had fashioned a sort of floral tribute using his gardening shoes and I thought I would like to do something similar myself.

In my mind, I was keen to plant up some lovely old Brogues with a few sempervivums.  But, given my husband rarely seems to wear anything but ridiculous Converse-style footwear, I came up short on that one.  However, I did get some rather fetching new wellies earlier in the year which meant I was able to retire my old green pair that had sprung a leak.

Yesterday, I dug these out from the back of the shed, found a few leftover bulbs from the pre-school gardening club and asked the kids if they wanted to plant up some boots.

I cut extra slits at the bottom and the children added gravel to the base for drainage.  Then it was simply a case of filling up with compost and planting the tulip, daffodil and crocus bulbs at the correct depths.

We will probably clean them up and decorate them when the flowers are ready to bloom.  Perhaps we could sketch on Nigel Colborn's face.  I wonder if that would contravene the restraining order?

Comments

[Helen]

Great idea - I found some old wellies which one of my boys had grown out of. Might do this at the weekend

[Nell Jean]

Too cute. I'm too old and staid to plant in boots, but what a great project to do with children.

[Dawn]

Helen - Do it! We can compare and contrast in spring.

Nell - surely there is no age-limit on planting up random footwear? Well, I'm 37 and more excited than the kids about it anyway...

[JamesA-S]

Your children don't watch nearly enough rubbish television...

[Jo]

My son is ready for a new pair of wellies. He might get them sooner rather than later now so I can nick his old ones.

[A Modern Mother]

Can't wait to see them when they grow yellow legs!

[Dawn/LittleGreenFingers]

James - don't worry, they put in the hours. We simply squeeze this sort of nonsense into the ad breaks.

Jo - It's upcycling - what are you waiting for!

Susanna - Yellow legs, red arms, possibly purple nose - then again, the squirrels might nick the lot of them...

[elizabethm]

Fabulous! If only I could persuade my husband to part with his second set of rigger boots I could do something wonderful with them. Sadly the fact that they leak doesn't mean he doesn't insist he is still using them - when? why? what for?

[Fruit Cages]

That is superb! My neighbour has an old watering can with bulbs growing in it

[Wendy]

Lovely! My kids seem to have all manner of outgrown footwear for our garden...look forward to trying this soon!