On Sunday, we will have daylight from 7:51 a.m. until 4:52 p.m. Those of us obsessed with light-seeking will notice that daylight is now increasing at the rate of one and a half minutes a day since the winter solstice. Spring is a long way off yet, but we are on our way. If we just keep getting up every morning, it will come.
This gladdens the hearts of gardeners.
There were also glad tidings in my mailbox this week: the first garden catalog arrived from K.van Bourgondien. It’s a bulb and plant catalog – no seeds – filled with what we really crave this time of year: page after page of vivid color photographs of flowers, ferns and foliage plants.
The images renew and awaken us.
K.van Bourgondien is an oddity among garden catalogs, and not just because it sells no seeds. It bills itself as a wholesale nursery, so if you fall in love with something on its pages, the minimum order is five or ten – and in some cases 100.
But at this time of year, it’s the ideas we’re after, and the catalog offers them for free. Oddly, I don’t recall ever ordering plants from this catalog, and I can’t vouch for their quality, but I’m grateful for the fantasies each page inspires.
The focus of my fantasy today is bulbs that can be planted this spring and, therefore, should be ordered soon.
Anemones, for instance. I have the tall, August-October blooming Japanese anemones, but it’s been decades since I’ve grown the small, 10-12 inch ones (also called poppy anemones) that bloom in May and June. This catalog has them in mixes of bright red, blue, pink and white.
The bulbs multiply and bloom for many years. These are flowers you’d want a bunch of, and this catalog will send you 25 for $8.50, which is a bargain. But I’d like them more if they were sorted by color. A sweep of red would be awesome. Eden Brothers does have them sorted by color, and their website shows a wider variety, including a spectacular purple/blue and the pinkest pink on the planet. Theirs are much more expensive, but oh, the colors . . . resistance may be futile.
Ranunculus are also gorgeous, and, like anemones, their name is fun to say out loud. K.van Bourgondien has loads of them. This is another small bulb that grows between one and two feet tall. Its flowers are said to resemble peonies, but that’s a stretch; the similarity is that, like most peonies, they have a zillion petals on each flower, but their personality is quite distinct. They also come in a wide range of colors.
Both anemones and ranunculus are members of the controversial buttercup family, which includes some shady characters known to be invasive weeds. But, these are the rich and well-behaved cousins, and Easy to Grow Bulbs has some really fancy Italian ones, grown from tissue culture (similar to cloning) to ensure the purity of their breeding.
Both anemones and ranunculus should be planted in very early spring. Some people plant them in the fall, but the bulbs aren’t happy in very wet places.
K.van Bourgondien also has loads of fabulous-looking lilies, but I’m partial to our local – or at least used-to-be-local – Lily Pad Bulb Farm, now decamped to Myrtle Creek, Oregon. I’ve bought lily bulbs from them ever since they sold them at the Olympia Farmers Market years ago, and theirs are the biggest and best. (And priced accordingly.)
These should also be ordered soon for later spring planting, as they often run out of the best varieties.
The new year has begun – and it starts with catalogs, fantasies, and a warming, low-grade garden fever.
Jill Severn writes from her home in Olympia, where she grows vegetables, flowers, and a small flock of chickens. She loves conversation among gardeners. Start one by emailing her at jill@theJOLTnews.com
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