Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Brent and Becky's Bulbs

Brent and Becky's Bulbs is another company whose catalog I look forward to every single year.



They're a small, family company, located in Gloucester, Virginia.  Their catalog features the typical bulbs: daffodils, tulips, crocus, and hyacinths.  It also has unusual selections, such as Bellevalia, Ornithogalum, Rhodophiala, and dozens of other bulbs I've never seen anywhere else.  They have a really large selection of daffodils and even sell some they have hybridized themselves.  I've never purchased tulips from them (mainly because I'm not a huge tulip fan), but they seem to have a large selection of those as well, especially of more reliable species type.

In the past, I've mainly ordered grape hyacinths, crocuses, and the shade garden collection.  Buying a collection was a good way to become familiar with some bulbs I had never heard of before.  I grew quite fond of Arum italicum and Crocus tommasinianus, so I'll be ordering those individually this year.

This past spring, I found two plants in the new yard I've never grown before: Fritillaria meleagris and Nectaroscordum siculum Bulgaricum.  Both were growing without much care, so I don't have to worry about whether they're suited to the yard or not.  I'll be buying more of both.

Finally, there are two plants I'm going to go out on a limb for.  Erythronium is a type of native lily sometimes called a trout lily or a dog-tooth violet.  They seem like they might be a Spring ephemeral plant and are best suited to moist woodlands.  The cultivar I'm choosing from Brent and Becky's is Erythronium revolutum 'White Beauty', which is marked as one of their favorites.  The other new-to-me bulb is Amarcrinum, also known as Crinodonna.  The big selling point of this bulb is it is rodent and deer proof.  It also blooms in mid-summer through fall.  They're not cheap, so I'm going to try one and see how it does.

Do you have any favorite unusual bulbs?

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