-- Dominique Browning, American writer and editor, NY Times Book Review, 12/3/09

Have You Ordered for Spring Yet?

        Although nine of our rarest bulbs are already sold out, plenty of antique iris, daylilies, dahlias, glads, tuberoses, crocosmia, rain lilies, and our easy samplers are waiting to thrill you at oldhousegardens.com.

Shipping Can't Start Till Mother Nature Says So

        Starting in January every year, we get emails from customers in warmer parts of the country who can't wait to share their good news with us: "Minor Monarque is blooming!" "My freesias are coming up!" "When I came home from work my Lent lilies were open!"
        Those happy emails make the last months of our Michigan winters a lot easier to trudge through, so please keep them coming. But please remember as you're basking in spring's glory that we won't have nighttime lows consistently above freezing till early APRIL, so we don't start shipping till then. We want your bulbs to reach you in perfect condition, not frozen to mush. Thanks for your patience, and happy spring!

Cupid Recommends Bulbs for Your Valentines

        Candy is fattening and cut-flowers don't last, but every gardener on your list will love our gorgeous, time-tested bulbs.
        For pink, red, and fragrant ones, visit Cupid's Favorite Bulbs where you'll also find our snazzy red tote-bags and -- easiest of all -- our dream-inspiring gift-certificates.
        Be sure to give yourself a little love, too. It's not just your sweetie, Mom, and garden friends who deserve endless beauty and eternal spring. Happy Valentine's Day!

Prince Charles Plants Byzantine Glads at Home

        True, zone-6 hardy Byzantine glads have gained another fan -- His Royal Highness Prince Charles! In the March 2011 English Garden magazine (on newsstands now), Claire Masset reports on the Prince's innovative, all-organic gardens at Highgrove, his family estate.
        "Last autumn, at the Prince's request," she writes, his gardeners planted "masses of Gladiolus communis subsp. byzantinus bulbs on either side of the Hornbeam Avenue next to the Wildflower Meadow. In May and June, they will create a spectacle of magenta flowers that will complement dreamy displays of camassias and Allium hollandicum 'Purple Sensation'. It's no wonder the Prince tries to spend as much time as possible at Highgrove during these months."
        Masset adds that "increasingly, the focus [at Highgrove] has been on a much more sustainable approach to bulbs." As head gardener Debs Goodenough explains, "Out of the 40,000 bulbs we planted last year, 95% are an investment in the garden. The crocuses and daffodils will carry on year after year."

Sports and Flowers: Gardening with Team Colors

        Although sports and flowers may seem to be an unlikely combination, quite a few of our customers mention their favorite teams to us -- perhaps because we're headquartered in Ann Arbor, home of the (usually) mighty University of Michigan Wolverines. One enthusiastic customer even sends us a sympathy card whenever Ohio State kicks our butt in football.
        So last fall when I noticed that we were shipping yellow daffodils and blue scilla to Deb Barber in Madison, Wisconsin, home of the University of Wisconsin, I wrote: "I probably shouldn't point this out, but that's a 'maize and blue' combo (as in UM's colors). Is that even allowed in Madison?"
        Deb responded in kind: "With a BA from Northwestern, I squint and then view virtually every bluish flower in my garden as purple, and make sure some whites are nearby. Note that I am trying your purple-headed garlic this time around. I also have a master's degree from Madison and my husband works for the university, so in summer I nod to Wisconsin and plant red geraniums with white. As for the possibility that I actually have maize and blue in my spring garden, hmmmmm. My biggest displays of daffodils are 'Red Devon' and 'Mary Copeland' -- both have orange centers, not maize. Together with the blue scilla, that hints at a University of Illinois combo. Fair enough, since my husband is an Illini grad.
        "While I am slow and steady at adding to my garden, the Big Ten is adding schools so fast that I resolved not to keep up, and will stick to antique team colors as well as antique bulbs -- with Old House Gardens' help. IMHO it is getting awkward to be a Big Ten alum of any kind, when it's clear these schools don't know math or geography."

Garden Artist Embraces Heirloom Glads

        Like most artists, Atlanta-area garden designer Ryan Gainey has a keen eye for beauty and a creative spirit that won't be bound by convention. He even likes gladiolus! In fact, he wrote a whole article about them, "So Glad," for Flower magazine. As he explains, "my great-grandmothers and my Aunt Marie grew gladiolus" and he did too when he started gardening in the 1960s. 'Spic and Span' was an early favorite, and when 40 years later he found it in our catalog, he was "swept away by a wave of nostalgia." Since then he's added many other heirloom varieties to his garden, including the rare parrot glad, an old Southern form of G. dalenii.
        Our readers can receive a special discounted subscription to Flower -- four quarterly issues for $14.99 -- by going to flowermag.com/subscribe and entering the source code, GLAD. Enjoy!

Major Garden Library Asks for Full Run of Our "Important" Catalog

        With a collection of over 20,000 items, the Cherokee Garden Library at the Atlanta History Center is one of the country's leading libraries devoted to gardening, garden history, and related fields. That's why we felt especially honored when the Library's director, Staci Catron, emailed us saying, "I am currently working on obtaining full runs of important seed and nursery catalogs" -- and asked for a dozen of ours that the Library was missing. We were glad to oblige, and ever since then we've been imagining gardeners a hundred years from now exploring and learning from our catalogs just like we have with catalogs from the past. Thanks, Staci!

Books of the Month: Hundreds of Discounted Garden Books

        If you like gardening, books, and saving money, check out discount bookseller EdwardRHamilton.com. Although their website is a bit clunky and they don't accept credit cards, I've been ordering from them for years and the only time I had a problem -- they sent the wrong book -- they rectified it immediately. Shipping is a deal, too, a flat $3.50 no matter how many books you order. Among their broad inventory you'll find:
        Garden history books, including Denise Adams' essential Restoring American Gardens: An Encyclopedia of Heirloom Ornamental Plants for just $15 (original price $40), and reprinted classics such Louise Beebe Wilder's 1935 What Happens in My Garden, $3 ($15),
        Bulb books, including Rod Leed's Autumn Bulbs, $8 ($30), and Peter Goldblatt's Crocosmia and Chasmanthe, $9 ($30),
        How-to books, including Stephen Scanniello's modern classic A Year of Roses, $4 ($25), and many other books about garden design, fruits and vegetables, herbs, trees and shrubs, houseplants, wildflowers, and on and on.
        For their January 2011 "Home and Garden Bargain Books" catalog, ignore the link to request their general catalog and instead use the "Contact Us" form to request that specific, 68-page catalog. Happy reading!

Rare Snowdrop Sells for $567

        The British rage for snowdrops hit new heights last week when a single bulb of the rare Galanthus plicatus 'E.A. Bowles' sold on Ebay for $567. The variety was discovered in 2002 at Myddelton House, the former home of legendary bulb connoisseur, E.A. Bowles (whom you'll find quoted throughout our catalog). With an $800,000 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Bowles' gardens are currently being restored to their early-20th century splendor. Learn more at the blog of our friend, snowdrop expert John Grimshaw. (As for the sale's effect on our prices, you have nothing to fear!)

Did You Miss Our Last Newsletter? Read It Online

        January's articles included renovating our old barn into our new "green" office, a librarian's gift of glads, Garden Design's "New Victorian Age," favorite heirloom sources, 'Ehemanii' in the snow, 5 new web-only glads, and more. You can read all of our back-issues -- by date or by topic -- at oldhousegardens.com/NewsletterArchives.asp .

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