Mutant, Alien Tulips

Every now & then, I will come across a flower at the hardware store that will make me risk exposing it to my black thumbs and plant it. I guess I shouldn't say my thumbs are black, because a lot of things that I plant do indeed grow. They just grow somewhat . . . . off. Weird. Crooked. Spastic. Twisted.

I planted these particular bulbs because the picture on the package was so pretty. They are parrot tulips, and this is what they are supposed to look like, same color too:

http://www.katinkamatson.com/prints/500/images/three_parrot_tulips.1024.jpg

Pretty, frilly, fringey. Aren't they nice?

But nooooooo, the ones I planted suffer from FUBAR Syndrome (F**ked Up Beyond All Recognition, and that's a real medical term). It didn't quite resemble the pretty picture when it writhed its way out of the ground.

In fact, when I first saw it, it scared me a little. I thought it was some mutant fungus or something. When BS saw it, he said "Little Shop of Horrors". This is what it looked like as a bud . . . .

. . . . Aaakkk! Then it opened, and it wasn't much better. Although its ugliness is starting to grow on me, and I think I'm becoming fond of the little guy. . . .

But then my yard, especially the back, has odd things growing everywhere. The back yard is part protected wetlands, and I can't touch them, so there's all sorts of cool stuff back there, and during a big storm, there's enough water to float a boat out to the river. This is the part I have to leave alone. . . .

I call it the swamp. Sometimes it stinks.