The Bulb Hunter

9. The Cabin Becomes a Home

CHA PT ER 9 The Cabin Becomes a Home ‘‘S on, what’s the matter? I haven’t heard from you in a while,” Joe said when I called him to give him an update on the company. “We’ve been busy!” “I picked up the New York Times piece. We’re real proud of you! I showed it to everyone who didn’t want to invest in you down here.” I didn’t respond to Joe’s comment but continued to make observations about how lucky we were to have the piece written. This tulip is on South Congress Avenue in Austin, but unfortunately it truly is larger than life. CLW the cabin becomes a home 147 Joe, however, was in failing health. Two short weeks after he read the article, Joe died. He never met Rebecca. I was sad to lose him. When Joe died, another investor pulled out. I found myself not far from where I had started, but after surviving hard times, the business and my life came out on solid ground. Rebecca would go on a few bulb hunts with me before and after our engagement. Bill continued to offer his assistance and remained adamant that some plants needed to be on the market, threatening to farm the bulbs himself if I didn’t get around to it. One of those bulbs he was adamant about was Crinum ‘Mrs. James Hendry.’ He had a population at one of his old residences. The new owners had graciously given him access so that he could divide some of the bulbs. Bill invited me to come dig with him, and I figured this was something Rebecca should experience with me before we tied the knot. “Oh, well,” I thought to myself. “She had better experience a crinum dig now and see if it is something she can get used to.” I hoped she wasn’t thinking this was going to be anything like collecting rain lily seeds or white irises. Thus, Rebecca Joy came with me on a very hot bulb-hunting adventure. Dirt and sweat abounded that day, and it was certainly not the cleanest dig I had ever been on. To my great joy, she was all smiles all day long, which is when I knew we were going to make it. Some important bulb hunts occurred before Rebecca was in my life. I have not yet mentioned them, but at this point you might have guessed that I have saved my search for the red tulip to the very end. There were several tulip locations floating in Bill’s memory, and one of the first ones he told me about was a site of a red tulip he had seen as a freshman student at Southwestern University, just north of Austin in Georgetown. In Georgetown he recalled a prairie-style home just across from the campus, where he saw a six-foot-diameter patch of large-flowering , spectacular red tulips. That was in 1959. “Could the tulip really still be there?” I pondered as I first set out to find the tulip in some other areas of the state. A trip down to Austin was out of the question for the time being, and I focused on some closer locations. 148 chris wiesinger At first I started in a small town south of Dallas. After a few small finds and tips from locals, I found myself arriving at the run-down remnants of a home, littered with the red-blooming tulip. My excitement began to surge. Walking up to the closest tulip, I bent down for a closer inspection. The outside was red, and on the inside the bloom matured into a deep red, with intense colors comparable to the berries of the Christmas holly. Poured into the bottom of the inside was a black pigment, dark enough to give the appearance of a pool of black ink sitting in the bottom. Lining the black was a pure, bright yellow, solid line that traced the top edge of this pool of black ink and separated it from the brilliant red to finish off the coloring. A parked truck at the edge of the lot let me know that I was not alone, and I took it upon myself to approach the person standing by the truck looking at the house. I spoke to the stranger and asked about the bulbs. He replied in...