Purchasing bulbs through mail-order

Sometimes you just don’t have enough time to get to a retail store or you want a particular variety of bulb that’s not commonly found in your local garden center or home supply store. This is where buying from a mail-order supplier can be a real advantage.
Here are the perks of sending away for your bulbs:

• Quality: Mail-order bulbs are frequently bigger and fresher. Every step of the way, from climate-controlled storage to the cushioned box they arrive at your door in, mail-order bulbs get premium treatment.
  
• Selection: Catalogs and Web sites devoted especially to bulbs are impressive: You can browse beautiful bulbs you’ve never seen at your local garden center. The selection of cutting-edge varieties also comes into play, because bulb merchants often work directly with Dutch growers to get the new and improved bulb varieties that sometimes aren’t produced in enough quantity to be distributed by mass merchants.

Take a look at the disadvantages:

• Wait time: There’s a lag between the time you place your order and the day you receive your bulbs. When you order the bulbs matters. If you order bulbs in spring or summer to be sent the coming fall, you may wait many weeks. It you order them in the fall, delivery usually just takes a few weeks, sometime less. Wait time also depends on the supplier. If the seller has the bulbs in his or her warehouse in the U.S., the bulbs are usually shipped faster than if they have to be sent to you directly from Holland.
• Inability to inspect the merchandise: You can’t handle or inspect your bulbs until they arrive. However, all reputable mail-order suppliers guarantee their wares and will replace bulbs or refund your money if the bulbs don’t meet your expectations. Find and read the guarantee and return policies, just in case you have to use them.

Buying bulbs from home stores and nurseries

You can buy bulbs in so many places these days. If you’re a novice and need some planting information, want top-size bulbs, and need help with your selection, garden centers and nurseries are often your best choice. Home centers have a reasonable selection but usually sell smaller bulbs, and they rarely provide much gardening information.
Here are the advantages of buying bulbs in person:

• Instant gratification and impulse buying: You can get the bulbs you want, or come across others that tempt you, and buy them on the spot.
• Immediate planting: Shopping and planting on the same day is an option if you have the time and are feeling gung-ho.
• Poor storage conditions: Normal display-rack or display-box conditions aren’t ideal for bulbs. Some may dry out; others may sprout prematurely. The smaller the bulb, the faster it dries out. In spring, summer-blooming bulbs are often displayed in home stores weeks, if not months, before the soil is warm enough for planting them.
• Lack of variety: Selection isn’t all that varied. Buy spring-blooming bulbs early for late-summer to early-fall planting. That way, the bulbs will be fresh and in the best condition, and you’ll have the biggest selection.
• Questionable contents in the bin: Bulbs may get into the wrong bin as customers pick through them. You may end up with the wrong color or a completely different type of bulb.
• When selecting your bulbs, read bin or packaging labels with care so you know the names of what you’re buying as well as something about the plants, like how tall they get, when they bloom, whether they grow in sun or shade, and how far apart and deep to plant them.

The Search: Where to Get Your Bulbs

Making a successful, beautiful bulb display doesn’t begin at planting time. It begins when you go bulb-shopping or bulb-swapping. Neighbors can be a great resource for extra bulbs when they’re dividing their bulbs. But do be picky: Free bulbs aren’t a bargain if they aren’t strong and healthy. Bulb quality can vary, so starting with good ones is important. Here’s what to look for:

• Appearance: A fresh, good-quality bulb is plump and clean, without obvious damage to its outer layers. Avoid bulbs with disfiguring dents or blemishes, which can let in rot-inducing bacteria. Bulbs may contain a small amount of green penicillin mold, which is rarely harmful. Some bulbs, like anemone and ranunculus, always look dried up.
  
• Heft: Pick up a bulb and handle it for a moment. Then pick up a few others from the same basket or bin (of the same variety) and compare their weights. Bulbs that feel lightweight relative to their peers are likely to be dried out and not viable (they may even be last season’s leftovers, for all you know). While you’re at it, gently squeeze the bulb. A squishy texture indicates rot, but a good, firm feel means the bulb has sufficient moisture content.
• Size: With bulbs, bigger is better. A larger bulb has more stored reserves and therefore can produce larger and more flowers on more substantial stems. You get what you pay for; you can get incredible deals on bulbs, but they may be too young and small to bloom.

A daffodil by any other name . . .

What’s the difference between a daffodil and a narcissus? None! Narcissus is the Latin name for the genus common to all daffodils. Jonquil, another common name ascribed to daffodils, is proper only when you’re referring a particular type, or division (Division 7), of daffodil called jonquilla. Essentially, the name refers to the species Narcissus jonquilla and its hybrids. These plants are the ones that have multiple flowers to a stem, and the blooms are usually very fragrant. In other words, all jonquils are daffodils, but not all daffodils are jonquils.

Mixing up your daffodils

Daffodils simply don’t have the color range that tulips do, but they do offer a fresh elegance in their whites, creams, yellows, oranges, and near-pinks. Daffodils come in about a dozen different forms, too, which aficionados call divisions. These varieties include the ever-popular trumpet forms; little ones that bloom in clusters; daffodils with tiny, almost flat trumpets; and flowers with trumpets so plush with petals they hardly seem like a daffodil at all. A great feature of daffodils is that nothing likes to eat them! Not squirrels, not mice, not voles, not rabbits, not deer!
And many daffodils are scented. Most have a light, sweet perfume that’s not overpowering. (If you’re after knock-your-socks-off fragrance, check out the jonquil type of daffodils.) To capitalize on fragrant daffodils, plant them in quantity so they can make an impression. Or at least plant enough so you can spare some for bouquets and enjoy that wafting sweetness indoors. Here are some tips for choosing daffodils:

• For single-color displays: Daffodils whose petals and trumpet are both the same color, all-white or all-yellow, make excellent massed displays, lovely in their simplicity. For a little more definition, you can seek out a few differently named varieties in the color you like. Varied forms can make such a display more intriguing.
• For mixed-color displays: A planting devoted entirely to yellow-andorange bicolor daffodils is a lot of fun. You can tuck in a few solids just to keep things interesting. Another nice idea is to mix the white-petaled, so-called pink-trumpeted daffodils with some plain whites. Blending all the colors and forms doesn’t tend to work well, because the pastel daffodils jar against the bolder hues and a mix of varied forms often looks too busy.
• For a longer-lasting show: Situate daffodils in an area that gets part-day shade or filtered light.
• For smaller areas or pots: You’re best off devoting a limited area to a single variety or two compatible ones. Miniature growing varieties are also a perfect choice.

Don’t mix daffodils of differing bloom times. When a daffodil is done blooming, you need to let the leaves die down (so they can replenish the bulb’s energy stores for next year’s show). Having some yellowing or drying leaves among up-and-coming bloomers doesn’t look good at all!

Combining various types of tulips

If the only tulips you know are the classic red ones lining a neighbor’s walkway, you’re in for a treat. The world of tulips is amazingly varied. You can find a wonderful range of hues, from royal purple to golden yellow to shell pink to pure ivory white; there are also many fabulous bicolors, especially the smashing red-and-yellow and pink-and-green ones. Forms also vary, from the popular goblet-shaped flowers (mainly the Darwin hybrids) to ones that resemble plush peonies or elegant lilies. Some tulips have flared or fluted petals or petals with fringed edges. Some are nearly knee-high; others are surprisingly low to the ground. All tulips are equally easy to grow. But before you get carried away with an ambitious planting scheme, remember also that although tulips are always spring bloomers, they don’t all bloom at the same time. You can find everything from “single early” to “double late” tulips, and you have to take these designations into account if you want your plans to work out. Check out the following tips for different types of displays:

• For single-color displays: Use a large quantity of the same exact tulip variety and plant closely.
• For mixed-color displays: Stick to a theme, such as pastel or bold colors. Tuck in a few bicolors that tie the display all together. Of course, if you have lots of space, going for the full rainbow can be fun, but to be effective, such a show needs to have a generous number of tulips in every hue.
• For a longer-lasting show: Research the bloom times so you get a range. Then mix up the varieties up throughout the display so it doesn’t look unbalanced and so something is always in bloom.
• For smaller areas or pots: Choose tulips of different heights and place the taller ones in the middle. That way, you can distinguish each one, and the variety and complexity of the show gives it more splash. Don’t plant your tulip display in a shady spot. Some spring bloomers don’t mind, but tulips do.

Choosing to Combine Your Bulbs

A lone bulb isn’t much of a show; nor, in truth, is a scattering or a row of a mere dozen. Bulbs are meant to be planted, enjoyed, shown off in generous numbers. The more, the merrier!
This need for company isn’t just because bulbs are small plants. In fact, some plants can grow fairly tall and even sport big, dramatic flowers. The case for putting in lots of bulbs, in sweeps or mix-and-match displays, is compelling:
The whole is inevitably greater than the sum of the parts. Flowering bulbs simply look fabulous in groups; their natural exuberance is multiplied.

Getting acquainted with the most popular bulbs

You can find many different types of bulbs, but they all have one thing in common: They’re packages of life just waiting to be planted. They differ from seeds in that they contain within them the beginnings of leaves, stems, and flowers. All they need is to be planted and watered, and the growth process can begin.
The common spring-flowering bulbs include tulips, noted for their impressive range of flower types and colors; daffodils, some of the most rugged and easiest to grow of all bulbs; and lilies, which, by planting different varieties, you can have blooming from late spring to early fall. Check out the color insert for a look at some of these bulb superstars.