“It might be unwise to publicly describe your mother or your boss as giddy, hysterical or irrationally acquisitive but the level of mania I observed between these otherwise sensible ladies as we approached the home of the “bulb-man” bordered on the diagnosable. David Atkins and his hoard of native and naturalized flowering bulbs had been causing a stir for a while. Ever since Country Roads Associate Publisher, Ashley Fox-Smith’s aunt had returned from a visit to his remote house far off of Highway 61 with a king’s ransom of dirt-flecked bulbs, the bulb-man was all I heard about. Ashley had infected my mother with the floral dementia as well. Whispered and reverent tales of fields upon fields of spider lilies, butter and egg lilies, hymenocallis and the unimaginably rare Byzantium gladiola were recounted in a manner normally reserved for discussing buried treasure.”
Read the full article and see more photographs over at Country Roads Magazine. The story is also available in the March print edition, on news stands now.