Emailed Thursday, July 13, 2006. To subscribe, click here.
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Friends of Old Bulbs Gazette
Old House Gardens, 536 Third St., Ann Arbor, MI 48103, (734) 995-1486
"What pleasure is there greater than to go round one's garden on a sunny day with a fellow-enthusiast, and to sing that cheering litany which runs, in strophe and antistrophe, 'Oh, wouldn't you like a bit of this?' . . . 'And I could send you a bulb of that.' Down delves the glad trowel into a clump, and it is halved, like mercy blessing him that gives and him that takes."
Reginald Farrer (British plant explorer, rock gardener, and author, 1880-1920)
To Get Your Returning-Customer Discount, Order by This Sunday!
To say thanks to customers who have ordered from us in the past, we offer a 5% discount. (It's not huge, but it is heart-felt!) To get it you must place your fall order by midnight this Sunday, July 16. That's just three days from now!
If you're ordering online, simply mention the discount in the feedback box on our order-form page and we'll figure it off-line before we charge your
order.
Can’t decide? Try one of our easy, awesome Samplers!
Special Offer: New Web-Only Treasures from the Hortus and More!
Every summer we offer a few fabulous bulbs from the treasure chest of the Hortus Bulborum, all of them too rare to offer individually in our print catalog. This
year for the first time we're offering some extra-rare hyacinths from the British National Collection as well, rarities we used to offer only in Our Rarest Hyacinths sampler. All for sale online now, and you're the first to know! MORE will follow in August, but don't wait till then. We have very few, and they
will go fast.
NINE amazing tulips including the 18th-century "dragon" Markgraaf van Baden, midnight-ruby Koh-i-Noor, dramatic Black and White, and the most exciting double we've ever offered, variegated Rex Rubrorum
Bontlof.
EIGHT awesome hyacinths including heroic Grace Darling, curly double Dreadnought, and virtually black Menelik.
'Blue Flag' and 'Argent' are Already Sold Out
Sorry about that! And thanks! They're the first two bulbs from this year's print catalog to sell out completely.
Book of the Month: Gardening with Heirloom Seeds
Just last month we celebrated with our friend Lynn Coulter the release of her exciting new book, Gardening with Heirloom Seeds: Tried-and-True Flowers, Fruits, and Vegetables for a New Generation. Lynn calls herself a "laid-back kind of gardener" and her book reads like an over-the-fence conversation with a friendly neighbor who loves gardening and just happens to know a LOT about all sorts of heirlooms and how to grow them from seed. Though her book doesn't include any bulbs (that's next, we hope!), it tells the story of some 30 flowers and 30 vegetables that have long and interesting histories in American gardens. Specific varieties like our favorite bachelor button 'Emperor William' are described, often with a date of introduction, and there are extensive growing tips, some recipes, and space on every page to add your own notes so you can make the book an heirloom to hand down along with your favorite seeds! To learn more or order, go to http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/T-7429.html.
When Bi-Color Dahlias Aren't: Blame the Heat
If your purple and white 'Deuil du Roi Albert' is
completely purple, or your silver-tipped 'Princess de Suede' has lost its silver, chances are it's
been hot lately. Bi-color dahlias normally vary a bit from bloom to bloom, but when the temperature goes up the varying can get extreme. In our trial garden we've seen blooms on a single plant of 'Deuil du' that are almost all white next to some that are completely purple.
If you watch your dahlias closely, you'll find that the colors of many of them vary as temperatures rise and fall through the growing season. Sunset-colored 'Arab Queen', for example, is often much more yellow when it's hot, and 'Kaiser Wilhelm' shows more of its rosy shading when fall brings cooler temepratures.
High temperatures often cause dahlias to slow their growth, too, but don't worry. They'll kick back into gear as temperatures cool and reward you with arm-loads of blooms in the fall.
Another Garden Memory: Poppy Fields Forever
Here's a vivid, almost dreamlike early garden memory shared by our good customer Kathleen Marshall of Lansing, Michigan:
"Over 50 years ago as a child I remember driving out to Maple Forest, Michigan, where my grandfather lived during the temperate months at the old family farm. There was the big gray farmhouse with a windmill and next to them a field of red-orange Oriental poppies in full bloom. I asked my grandfather how that happened and he said he didn't know. I have never, ever forgotten the sight of all those poppies. To this day, my heart sings when I see Oriental poppies.
Heirloom Plants at Historic Sites: Two Model Approaches
Landscapes at historic sites often get short shrift, but here are two pioneering efforts to include truly historic plants in authentic ways that also
attract and educate visitors.
Herbs are deeply historic, but by the 1800s they were much less common in home gardens than most of us today believe. So how can a historic site serve
modern, herb-loving visitors without misrepresenting the past? At Massachusetts' Old Sturbridge Village, right outside the visitors' center and before you enter the historic part of the Village there's a huge, carefully labeled herb garden. There people can enjoy and learn about a vast array of herbs, which means there's no need to over-plant herbs in the historic areas. A garden like this outside the historic core of any site (by the parking lot, for example) could be devoted to all sorts of heirloom flowers displayed as if in museum cases, allowing the
landscape in the historic core to be kept as authentic as possible.
Williamsburg does something similar with its Colonial Garden which is essentially an intensively planted teaching garden in the colonial style right on the main street of the village. Under the expert leadership of our good friend Wesley Greene, costumed interpreters who know a heck of a lot about colonial gardening explain things to visitors all day long and engage children in historic garden tasks. Here Williamsburg grows some of our rare tulips that are too expensive for them to plant in large quantities in their other gardens. Wesley digs and stores these tulip bulbs when they go dormant which both gives him more to replant in the future and helps to preserve these highly endangered living relics. We wish every historic site would do that!
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