~ Vidal Sassoon
It's that time of year again when work hours go from long days to the seemingly never ending, the bulbs are being harvested and repotted and the bags of saleable stock are being lined out on the shelves ready for your orders. 4 yards of my custom blended potting mix is piled up and shovel ready. With a little luck and determination, I'm hoping the 2020 catalog will be out late next week. I will continue to update here.
For my day job at the Lord and Schryver Conservancy, this is a fun time as I get to be a bulb buyer instead of a seller. This time of year I'm busy with research, planning and ordering to recreate the historic flower displays that Elizabeth Lord and Edith Schryver drew and planted at the famed Gaiety Hollow garden. This particular year I'm recreating the 1956 design, that featured heavy use of lily flowered tulips and the newly developed Ideal Darwin varieties of the day. I thought I would share a few of the fall bulb catalog gems I ran across in my research this year:
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| Gone are the days when you could get 100 Fritillaria recurva for $12, as in this 1929 W.E. Marhsall and Co Fall bulbs catalog. |
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| How about the selection of species tulips in this 1956 Wayside Gardens catalog! |
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| It's fun to read through the old catalogs and to try to match the selections with today's modern varieties and occasionally find a heirloom that has survived the test of time. |
As it never fails to do, the weather turned hot and dry for the harvest, temps moderating a bit this week after a solid run of days in the 90's last week.
Stay tuned for a catalog release date that is coming soon!
Cheers,
Mark
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