If the care home are happy for you to do it, then go for it. What have you got to lose, and it will make a p****d off old lady happy. Whatever age we are, under the current circumstances anything that gives us something to look forward to is a Good Thing. And @fidgetbones is right, Great Aunt Sylvia was a legend. I saw her in a repeat of the programme a couple of weeks ago. A great lady, may she rest in peace.
The smaller bulbs will certainly be fine in a windowbox trough, or even pots placed in an outer trough. Bigger daffs and tulips will be fine this year (their flowers are already formed in the bulb) but they might not repeat next year. If you have time and space you could replace the pots with
something else for summer/autumn colour and take the bulb pots home for
the summer so you can give them a feed while they're dying down, make sure they get watered at the right time, etc.
Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
Sylvia was gardening up to the age of 103. At 95 she went on a trip and was pictured riding on a camel in the desert. The front of her bungalow in the complex had a label saying "Sylvias garden." In the back garden she had bird feeders and she loved watching the birds and squirrels that came round.
Photo of her last Birthday party. The two holding her cake are her children. The lady in pink is my Aunty Mo. 89. You get a card from the Queen every year after 100. Channel 4 sent the huge pink balloons along.
I have solved (I hope ) the Aunt Lizzie problem . Like a good boy, I went to her old garden and dug up as many bulbs as I thought would fit on the balcony and three large pots. I filled them with supermarket compost and put a bit of her own soil on the top, as it was a different colour - she would have noticed. I then bought two tropical plants, a large bright pink Sunpatiens and a Castor Oil Plant "Impala" with purple-red leaves to put near the window. I also bought a small mist sprayer for the dry air, which knowing her, she will use four times a day. It may even improve her chestiness. Thank all of you for your suggestions, if there were more space I would have used many of them.
If you need replacements later, how about perfumed lilies. I gave my daughter a single enormous bulb of an allium and my son in law a big bulb of a Crown Imperial, for fun, in their Christmas stockings. Your aunt might enjoy actually planting them, easy to hold and handle. They would need large deep pots, there are lots of summer flowering bulbs which are smaller. Ixias etc. I am already a "grumpy old woman" but still living at home and pottering around my large overgrown garden and do I care? No I do not!
Thats OK. When she was 104, she got letters from all over, including her fan club she gained from channel 4.People she had never met sent her presents. A legend to us and inspiration to many. Because so many wanted to go to her funeral, they put the care home in lockdown two hours after the funeral.
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And @fidgetbones is right, Great Aunt Sylvia was a legend. I saw her in a repeat of the programme a couple of weeks ago. A great lady, may she rest in peace.
Thank all of you for your suggestions, if there were more space I would have used many of them.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I am already a "grumpy old woman" but still living at home and pottering around my large overgrown garden and do I care? No I do not!