– Henry Mitchell (1923-1993, one of America's best, and funniest, garden writers)

Online Now: Our Most Exciting New Catalog Ever

        Your wait is over! Our brand-new catalog is online now. We'll mail our gorgeous print version as soon as it gets back from the printer next week but
        bulk mail can be painfully slow,
        many of our treasures will sell out quickly, and
        returning customers get a 5% discount for ordering early.
        Take a quick peek or start shopping before the crowds arrive at oldhousegardens.com!

We've Added Iris, Peonies, Daylilies, and More!

        53 flowers are new to our catalog this year (or back after a hiatus), including our very first antique iris, peonies, and daylilies.
        For a quick look at all 53, go to our New Bulbs page. A few of the most exciting are:
        voluptuous, world-famous 'Festiva Maxima' peony,
        the true lemon lily daylily,
        fragrant pink 'Louise de Coligny' daffodil,
        weird, asymmetric 'Red Hue' tulip, seen this spring in Garden Design,
        the allium colonial gardeners called "purple-headed garlic,"
        unique 'Ehemannii' canna, with gracefully dangling bells,
        dramatic burgundy-and-silver 'Sellwood Glory' dahlia. And remember, that's just a start!

Our Two New Bulbs of the Year

        Every year we honor two bulbs (one fall-planted, one spring-planted) that are exceptionally beautiful, garden-worthy, and much too rarely grown today. This year's honorees are (drum roll, please!): double 'Chestnut Flower' hyacinth (and don't miss our new Doubles Delight hyacinth sampler), and stately 'Madame Chereau' iris, Victorian America's all-time favorite.

Intensely Blue: Our New Turkish Glory-of-the-Snow

        New to our catalog this year is the TURKISH glory-of-the-snow, not to be confused with the common luciliae/forbesii/siehei forms. Expert Judy Glattstein praises it in her fine Bulbs for Garden Habitats: "Chionodoxa sardensis . . . has an intensity of blue that must be seen to be believed, its concentration unadulterated by any white. . . . Four to twelve flowers per stem provide an abundant display from even a handful of bulbs. In a lightly shaded site at the edge of the woods I planted a goodly numbered, 50 or more, with 10 Narcissus 'Rip van Winkle'. The dwarf daffodil, a cheerfully tousled, ragged mophead of a double, like an exaggerated dandelion, makes a charming contrast to the blue puddle beneath them. The two kinds of bulbs have been coming back year after year, so I think it is a happy marriage."

Monticello Symposium to Focus on Historic Edibles

        Prominent early American gardeners and the edible plants they grew will be celebrated at this fall's Historic Plants Symposium at Monticello's Center for Historic Plants. Speakers include the irreverent Felder Rushing, author of Passalong Plants; Arthur Smith, food historian and author of The Tomato in America; cider-maker and heirloom fruit lover, Ben Watson; herb authority and heirloom-plant collector, Art Tucker; Colonial Williamsburg's garden historian, Wesley Greene; and Monticello's own Peter Hatch. The symposium is conveniently scheduled for Friday, Sept. 5, the day before the Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello's Tufton Farm. For more information on both, contact our good friend Peggy Cornett at pcornett@monticello.org or (434) 984-9816.

Don't Try This At Home!

        Bulbs want to grow, we always say, and here's an example of what we mean from our good customer Joel Hernandez of Minneapolis, MN: "We got early snow last year and I didn't get a chance to get all of your tulips planted. Luckily, I kept them in our [attached] garage and got them in early this spring. They all came up beautifully – if a little late."

Book of the Month: A Naturalist Celebrates Weeds and More

        Enormously popular from the 1870s through the 1920s – and a close friend of both Walt Whitman and Henry Ford – naturalist John Burroughs published hundreds of essays that celebrate nature and capture the spirit of his time. Here's a bit from one I especially like. Though it's titled "A Bunch of Herbs," it's really about weeds, which are very historic plants. And don't be misled by the rapturous tone. Burroughs is no sap, and his essays are still entertaining and thought-provoking today.
        "A weed which one ruthlessly demolishes when he finds it hiding from the plow amid the strawberries, or under the currant-bushes and grapevines, is the dandelion; yet who would banish it from the meadows or the lawns, where it copies in gold upon the green expanse the stars of the midnight sky? After its first blooming comes its second and finer and more spiritual inflorescence, when its stalk, dropping its more earthly and carnal flower, shoots upward, and is presently crowned by a globe of the most delicate and aerial texture. It is like the poet's dream, which succeeds his rank and golden youth. This globe is a fleet of a hundred fairy balloons, each one of which bears a seed."
        To read the whole thing, go to http://books.google.com/books?id=_iNLAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA125&dq=bunch+of+herbs+john+burroughs#PPA127,M1 .

Did You Miss Our Last Newsletter? Read It Online!

        April's articles included Scott on dahlias in The Old-House Journal, hyacinth history, combating gladiolus thrips and daffodil flies, photos at DaffSeek.org, and more. You can read all 73 of our back-issues – by date or by topic – at oldhousegardens.com/NewsletterArchives.asp .

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