Guidelines for Winter Protection of Lily Bulbs

Cold Winters - Midwest & Northeast
Although moderate climates only require enough mulch to reduce winter weed germination, colder climates need a bit more attention. In colder areas of Wisconsin, Minnesota and other Northern Tier States, gardens can experience very cold temperatures with frost levels greater than 5 feet and without enough snow cover to prevent the loss of rose bushes, trees, shrubs and other “above ground” plants. Protecting lily bulbs under such trying conditions is easy if the ground is properly mulched.  In the severe winter climates you MUST place an insulating layer of straw, ground leaves or other material over all Trumpet, Oriental, OT Hybrids or species where gardens are subject to deep freezes (generally colder than -10o F.), this is especially true if a good snow cover is lacking or not expected. Asiatics do not usually need extra protection, but all other lily bulbs in the Midwest, Northeast or Mountain states should be covered for protection.

In early Spring, remove the mulch in layers as the ground thaws and warms, to evaporate rainfall (or snow melt) as quickly as possible.

Too much sudden moisture can cause your bulbs and sprouts to rot. If lilies are planted at the top of a ridge or small hill, frost will not settle on the plants, so those areas may get by with less mulch  Avoid soggy, wet areas as well as low spots where frost will be heavier in winter.  A good layer of mulch may consist of 8 to 12 inches of straw or hay, tree boughs or other fluffy material. Avoid compacted, whole leaves or wet grass clippings because these have the potential to hold too much moisture around your underground bulbs and the sprouts will rot in spring if you do not remove the mulch fast enough. Shredded leaves are better because they allow air movement and are easier to remove in spring.


Wet Winters - Southern & Coastal States
In mild climates, be very CAREFUL about mulching newly planted bulbs if you were affected by an unusual amount of rainfall last winter or spring, that resulted in your garden becoming overly saturated.  Lily Bulbs by their very nature are designed to store water for times of drought; plant on a slope or in a slightly raised bed to avoid flooding—they do not swim well and will suffocate if the soil stays constantly soggy over winter.  Moisture replenished from rainfall on a daily basis is OK just as long as it is draining away quickly and not sitting stagnant.  During cold and wet springs, a thick mulch over lily bulbs may cause the sprouts to decompose while still underground or as they begin to emerge. (See Fungus: Stump Rot (Phytophthora) on our website under “Problem solving - Animals to Weeds”.) In moderate/mild Southern and Coastal areas, use only enough mulch (one or two inches) to suppress winter weed germination, especially if this winter is expected to be wetter than normal.

During very moist winters, if the soil surface is not allowed to dry between rainfalls and the garden remains saturated, you will risk losing even established bulbs. 

Use a porous mulch (e.g. straw or large nuggets of bark) will allow your soil to breathe and dry faster. Go easy on compost; only an inch or two on top of the soil is recommended per year.  Your goal is not deep freeze protection as in the Midwest or Northern states, but rather a tidier garden.

Gardeners in maritime areas of the Pacific Northwest, that are subject to large amounts of heavy rainfall over winter and into June, need to be especially careful about using bark, shredded leaves or other decorative materials in winter.  Add a new layer to your garden in spring after wet snow and/or heavy rainfall has diminished and just before the new weed seeds begin to germinate, which will keep the garden looking good all next summer.  It is important to allow the soil surface to dry properly between storms. For good looks, freshen your mulched garden in June, after the wet and cold weather has settled and the days have become drier.



NEW - Alaska & Gardens at High Elevation
(Not printed in the Planting Guide.) Planting in the garden is preferable (See Midwest & Northeast Instructions above), but customers in the far north sometimes pot up lily bulbs for winter and keep them in a colder area until spring.  These instructions are important should the soil suddenly freeze too hard and deep before our bulbs can be harvested and mailed in mid October.  Strategies include placing lily bulbs planted in pots with moist—not saturated soil—in the crawl space under their house or wrapping them in pink fiberglass insulation in an attached, cold garage or protected shed over winter.  A heavy cover of insulating snow also helps to moderate the temperature so that the soil surrounding the pots slowly freezes around them.  Quick freezes or freeze-thaw conditions all winter will leave lily bulbs looking like a frozen, thawed onion—limp and not viable.

Do not store pots in a greenhouse or root cellar that stays warm over winter OR is allowed to experience quick freeze-thaw conditions.

Lily bulbs need 8 to 10 weeks of cold, preferable below 35 degrees F. to reset themselves for bloom the next summer.  If they do not have enough cold treatment, they will either emerge weak and spindly or simply grow leaves and not bloom.  Should pots be stored in an greenhouse that stays constantly over 40 degrees day and night, the bulbs will also not bloom well either.  Modern hybrids are derived from wild lilies in temperature climates, where the soil slowly freezes deep over a period of time or the soil regularly only freezes a few inches below the surface each winter.  If stored in an unheated greenhouse, where the temperatures drop below freezing at night, but warm up to above freezing on sunny days, the freeze-thaw will compromise the integrity of your lily bulbs and they will most likely rot before spring.

Your goal is to allow soil surrounding the lily bulbs to slowly freeze.  We do the same in our winter coolers.  Wet peat surrounding the bulbs is frozen solid, which in turn slightly freezes the lilies in place and mimics a natural winter.  They stay in this dormant frozen state with proper hydration and the cooler air temperature is just a degree above freezing, until the cases are removed and prepared for shipping across the USA in April.  This is not something you cannot do at home, because the lilies need to be in a large block of soil/bulbs (about 45-50 pounds) to be protected and the air temperature is dropped only a few degrees each week.  Home freezers are designed to freeze solidly to zero or below within a few hours, which would turn the lily bulb to mush upon thaw.

Planted in a well-drained garden, soil freezes at a slower rate and acts as a buffer.  If you are lucky to have a good snow cover as well, your sleeping bulbs are quite happy.  If in those odd years of either no snowfall or snow that comes and goes over winter,  a thick mulch (foot or so deep) of shredded leaves, cut evergreen branches, bark or other insulating material is in order.  Avoid whole, large leaves (like Bigleaf Maple) because they will tend to mat down and become slimy.  Remove the layers as the snow melts to allow soil to slowly warm and wake up your lilies.

Also see:  Hardiness for bulb types and a brief Planting Guide for bulb depth on this Blog.

Farm is not open to visitors - and why.

This time of year generally brings inquiries about when our farm is open to see the lilies. 

We are a working farm and decided to close the field to visitors 6 years ago - after 27 years of being open all summer.  We were having concerns about privacy and security; some people were treating our home as a public park, so you can imagine the troubles there.  Not to mention the difficulty with people picking "one of a kind" flowers out of the seedling rows to ask their "name".  Makes it a bit hard to do photography or select out new lilies for introduction when flowers go "missing" just at their peak.

  
If you do not have a copy of our catalog, an electronic version (Flipbook) can be found on our home page, or if you are in the continental USA or in Alaska, we are taking catalog requests for the Spring 2014 printed catalog here.  For visiting with gardeners in person,  also attend several Home & Garden shows, plus major Flower and Garden shows in the Pacific Northwest.

When Mother Nature is generous with rainfall

It is usually easier to add moisture,  than take it away.  

We have received reports of high rainfall in areas of the country that has caused caused concern for gardeners.  There have been yellow leaves on lower portion of lily stems that fall off, smaller flowers this year and even "no-shows" in some cases.  If even your established lilies are showing any of these symptoms, it is a good idea to check the moisture content of your garden now.  Additions of moisture-retentive peat, manure or compost around the bulb when planting tends to keep the soil wetter than lilies are able to use.  If you are seeing yellow leaves, cut back on summertime watering.  

If Mother Nature has dropped abundant water too often on your garden, remove any mulch surrounding the lilies to allow the soil to dry faster as a quick fix.   Only water when your soil is dry one inch or two below the surface, and then leave the water on long enough, so the ground is moist 6 to 8 inches deep.  Your shrubs and trees will also appreciate the deep watering, which will help them to tolerate periods of drought.

Correct questionable drainage by making a raised bed.
Clay soil with sluggish percolation is a reality for many gardeners on flat terrain. Provided your garden is not covered by stagnant water for extended periods of time, abundant rainfall with good drainage allows oxygen-filled water to wash over the roots. Lilies can tolerate a lot of moisture for a short time. By slightly raising the planting area so that the bulbs themselves are above ground level, their roots may still penetrate into waterlogged soil and the survival of your choice cultivars will be ensured. The basal plates (bottom) of larger bulbs may be 8 to 10 inches below the surface; therefore your raised area should be about 12 inches high for best results.  

Choose a sunny site for your new lily bed this summer. It is not necessary to lift turf, but persistent roots of bindweed, thistle or other difficult to eradicate weeds require removal. Outline the area with landscape timbers or used railroad ties, pounding 12 to 18 inch long sections of pipe or "rebar" into the ground to steady the wood, and back fill with fresh topsoil, amended as mentioned earlier. To keep moles, voles, gophers and other tunneling varmints out of the bed, lay down 1/4" galvanized wire cloth from the hardware store before setting your landscape timbers on top, bringing the wire up around the outside of the wood. Using "horseshoe nails" or heavy wire staples used on fences, attach the woven wire to the outside of the timbers, using soil or creeping plants to soften the edges and hide the barrier.

Although coarse sand can be added for additional drainage, Perlite is a better choice for a lighter mixture. If moles, voles or gophers are abundant in your area, place a barrier of 1/2 inch galvanized hardware cloth on top of the ground, installing your timbers on each end. If your new bed is wider than the barrier screen, overlap the wire by one or two inches. On large raised beds, mound soil higher in the center, sloping down to one inch below the height of the timbers on the edge. If desired, plant short-growing Hemerocallis with daffodil bulbs in the outer 12 inches for a unified border. These smaller daylilies will hide the decaying foliage of the spring bulbs, plus soften the appearance of the timbers with color and green foliage throughout the summer and fall. For newly constructed beds in late summer, wait at least one year before planting new lily bulbs in fall if you are in a more severe climate, to allow the soil to settle. In an emergency, you can use a thick layer of mulch (12 inches of straw, etc.) over the beds for winter in colder climates - removing it during spring thaw -  to help insulate the lilies before the soil has compacted enough.  In milder climates, Zone 7 and higher, no mulch over winter is necessary.

Gosling update, out of the office and onto pasture.

3 weeks old, growing fast, with new feathers.

Our five little "Office Goslings" are growing fast and although they spend their nights in a corner of our shipping room, during the day they forage behind the building eating weeds, tender grass and taking turns bathing in their mortar box swimming pool.  Now that the weather has finally warmed and the birds are quickly growing feathers, the next move is a pen sharing a fence line with our adult geese.  They are imprinted upon Dianna and Anne Marie and come when called, but are now starting to grumble when its time to move into the building for bed, but then, what child doesn't? 

Too big to do this now!

Bob mentioned last week that the babies were looking a bit ruffled; yellow fuzz interspersed with tiny white feathers (and soft adult down) here and there, but they are growing normal and healthy.  (Actually, he really said they looked, "like they got too close to the weed eater", with their uneven feathering and "moldy" colors.)  Three will have patches of light grey for their first year and two will be pure white, but the grey color will mostly disappear after the first molt, which is normal for the Tufted Roman breed. 

Since the goslings all had their "first bath" within three days of hatching, their wax glands are in full operation and they furiously preen themselves after each romp in the water.   Two or three more weeks and they'll spend day and night with the mature geese for protection from aerial assault.  We can hear the next crop of coyote pups yipping in the hill behind the lily field, so its time to fortify our fencing with electric wire soon.  We do like the coyotes eating the rodents within the grassy edges of the field and are happy to have the varmint control, but have to draw the line when it comes to our pets. 

This timing of moving the goslings will work out very well, because our Ancona ducklings will be here next week and after a few days in the shipping room office for warmth, will move to our newly cleaned out, insulated bulb cooler for a couple of weeks.  (BTW - Thank you everyone for helping to clean the #2 cooler of Asiatic bulbs last week!) The nice thing about insulated rooms is that you can regulate the temperature control to either freezing or toasty warm.

Also see the original post:  Five Little Office Goslings

 Bob and Dianna are on the way to Eastern Washington for Garden Expo in Spokane this weekend.  If in the area, come by and see us.  This is a one-day, Saturday-only garden sale.

Winter Planting of Poppy Seeds

Dianna's Purple Poppies

Just an update...

Planting annual poppy seeds in the milder areas of the Pacific Northwest or similar climates should be done in "batches'.  Sow 1/3 of your packet in either December or early January, then another third in another location about Mid February, and the remainder of the packet (or packets) in Early March.

Your goal is to spread out the bloom through June to August, plus should the early seeds be washed away by heavy rainfall - not unheard of in Western WA or OR - you will not have bloom for this summer.  Seedlings can still be transplanted when they have their first leaves.  More precise information on sowing seeds and culture can be found on our previous post:  How to Plant Poppy Seeds

We'll have fresh seed from September's harvest at the  Tacoma, Portland, Seattle and San Francisco Garden Shows (January - March) or you can order on our website for delivery ASAP.  Bear in mind that seed sown during warm spring days will require watering, but seed sown during cold and wet weather pretty much takes care of itself - just provide a prepared bed to scatter the tiny seeds and do not cover - they need light to germinate.   Sowing in pots is more specialized, see the link above for instructions.

Lily bulbs are tucked away for winter.

Bulblets can be left attached or planted separately.

Our midwinter harvest has been completed and bulb selections for the spring 2013 catalog are being being tucked into the coolers for winter.  To keep the lilies in pristine condition through the end of shipping in May, bulbs are packed into slightly damp peat and the coolers are slowly dropped down to where the surrounding peat is frozen solid.

Lily bulbs that are reserved for the early Flower & Garden or Home & Garden Shows are kept on a natural cycle, meaning they can go into your garden whenever the soil is not frozen. (Yes, you still need to water newly planted bulbs - to settle the soil - even if Mother Nature has been generous with the rainfall.)  For bulbs still left in inventory, we can safely ship until about the first half of December, while the weather cooperates.  Just before Christmas the spring catalog will be uploaded to the website and order buttons will be made active for spring delivery.

Last Christmas Sale of the Season - "It's a Wonderful Life in Fife"

Rare Alder Bowl with live edge

"Sourgum" Acrylic on gallery canvas

B&D Lilies will be at the Poodle Dog Restaurant, in Fife, WA -  one day only - December 18th for a very special event.  Karolyn Grimes, the child actress who played "Zuzu" in the Jimmy Stewart classic film will be the featured speaker at this unique Christmas Sale + Dinner + Film Showing.  The door opens at 8AM for early shoppers ($10) or at 10AM for only $3, if you bring two cans of food for Northwest Harvest.








Dianna will have Northwest Jewelry, the Silk Vietnamese Lanterns, her artwork and Bob's wood turnings, as well as at least a dozen varieties of lily bulbs to plant now.

Stop by on the 19th, its an easy exit off I-5
in Fife (first exit coming from Seattle, last if heading north from Tacoma).  Go west over the freeway and the Poodle Dog will be across the street.  Click on the link for more information.

"It's a Wonderful Life in Fife"

Lily Bulb Harvest Update for 9.29.12

Nights have finally dropped below 40 degrees.

In our little valley, the vine maple leaves are beginning to turn orange and fall to earth, and our lilies are ripening their stems for safe digging and processing.  About 80% of the earlier blooming Asiatics and LA hybrids (L. longiflorum x Asiatic) have already been dug, cleaned, sized, and packaged, and have been tucked into a cooled holding area waiting for their turn to be transported to the bins in the shipping room.

Sometimes there are surprises underground.

The weather has been relatively dry this fall and most of the trumpet lilies are being harvested this weekend, following irrigating the field.  We are still checking Orientals and Orienpets (OT or Oriental-Trumpet hybrids) for digging next week, while a few early to bloom varieties on the ends of rows have already been processed.  (All bulbs will be out of the ground within the next 10 to 14 days, and on the 9th, Dianna will be celebrating her birthday while grading bulbs! - Bob)

Normal size bulblets on stem.

Look at the HUGE bulblets formed on this Asiatic!  Granted, these are larger than normal and the "mama" bulb was smaller than the others in the row, but that was because all of her energy went into producing bulblets (like raising kids).  These extra-large offsets will most likely bloom next summer, instead of needing another summer of growth before making a single flower like the smaller bulblets in the photo on the right.  As a size reference, the large bulbs on the end of the stems were all 14cm in circumference.

What can you do to encourage such large offsets?  

Some gardeners like to plant their lilies on their sides, but the bulbs generally "right" themselves anyway; some give their lilies too much nitrogen fertilizer, which actually weakens the bulbs and causes rot; still other gardeners plant in pure compost hoping for outstanding results, but during a wet year they risk losing the bulbs to rot over winter.  Rather than trying to manipulate nature simply feed your lilies a balanced fertilizer (5-10-10 or similar; we use Rose food) in spring and midsummer, water when the soil is beginning to dry two inches below the surface, and keep weeds and aggressive plants from stealing nutrients and water from your lily garden.

Not everybody is ready to dig.  See the green leaves?

How do we know when to harvest? 

As we "test dig" bulbs, we are looking for them to be a large enough size, as well as checking that the new "nose" (future stem) is being formed before harvesting that variety.  Lily bulbs mature at differing rates depending on breeding background, the specific cultivar within a type, and outside influences such as when fertilizer was applied, the amount of water received as well as air and soil temperatures during the growing season.

Shipping begins Mid October for the coldest regions.

In early October our database computer begins printing the orders that can be filled with varieties that are ready in the bins, even while the remaining bulbs are being harvested and packaged.   We look to be right on schedule to start shipping to the coldest areas of the USA the second week of October, with the warmer regions following soon after. 

Getting ready for shipping.

Delivery by region is best for lily bulbs.

Here's a link for information on preparing your garden early if you are concerned about freezing temperatures before your order arrives.  Lilies are shipped to the Midwest and East (and mountain regions) from Washington State Monday-Wednesday, and we generally fill West Coast orders Thursday-Saturday.  Shipping is dependent on cross-country weather, if the temperatures begin to drop more quickly than expected, we put the west coast orders aside for a time and we concentrate on the colder areas.

Southern areas are shipped the third or fourth week of October, or in early November.  Soil in mild winter areas needs to cool before fall planting, as lily bulbs do not have a hard shell like a tulip or daffodil and can be damaged by heat.

Priority Mail boxes and stacks of packaged bulbs waiting to go into the bins are stacked just outside the shipping room.   We use our coolers during summer to store our flower show equipment, and when fall shipping is completed and we start the winter harvest, we move the show equipment out of the coolers to the shipping room floor to make room for the lily bulbs.  Bulbs dug over winter are the ones we offer in our spring catalog.

Other blog posts you might have missed:

Green Stems on lily bulbs mean don't dig yet!

Winter care of potted lily bulbs.

Garden Cleanup, its never too early to begin.

Ice chunks falling from the sky...

What a night.  Thunder and lighting to just before dawn, with a few showers thrown in for good measure, then just when we thought the worst of the storm had passed us by, chunky hailstones the size of chickpeas dropped just when it became light enough to see.  Because we rarely experience electrical storms for such a long time, this weather is more like Minnesota than the Northwest corner of Washington State .  (The elements are still rumbling out there, so this posting will be quick.  I've already lost my satellite internet once today and had to shut the computers down.)

Lilies whose flowers were already opened suffered bruising, but because we are somewhat late for bloom this spring, the ones still in tight bud have a chance to open normally.

Before the storm.

24 hours later, 2 hours after hail storm

The lily on the right was photographed yesterday and today the same stem (shown below) is covered in brown spots.  The upper right flower just opening in the top photo is the same one shown front and center in the next photo down.  Damage would not have been so fast nor dramatic had the hail stones been a bit smaller.  Note that the lower facing blossoms were not damaged and should continue to look nice.  (In our commercial propagation fields, we had already begun removing the unopened flower buds to encourage the bulbs to grow larger for our fall harvest, so we have no reason to worry about October's crop.)

IMPORTANT:  Spray a good copper based fungicide ASAP after any moisture on the flowers and stems has dried - the same as you would for roses.  With tiny hailstones, you might not notice damage right away, but the bruises could set the stage for fungus later on.  Look for "wet-looking" darker colored spots on the leaves and flowers now; later if Botrytis begins, those spots will turn brown and/or have clear centers.  
 

 [update 7.14.12]

48 hours later - notice how the "older" spots have turned brown?  The second bout of hail several hours later caused the clear, moist areas on the petals, but they are expected to also begin turning brown with a day or so. 

Simply remove any open flowers that were damaged (or shredded) by hail, leaving unopened buds intact and spray the buds, leaves and surrounding soil with a good fungicide ASAP.  The underground bulbs will not be damaged and will continue to grow larger for next summer's bloom if the leaves are left on the stems.  

Buds that were tightly closed during the storm should open normally but we still recommend spraying a copper-based fungicide as a precaution.  Baking soda solutions (1T per gallon of water) can be a good preventative, but its need to be applied more frequently.  Farm stores are a good place to find copper products, "big box" lumber stores -  in my opinion are not so good - they are more geared to "death and destruction" chemicals.

 

UPDATE - Tiny Piny Pineapple Lilies

UPDATE  –  'Tiny Piny Pearl 'will not be available this year after all, the bulbs being harvested are too small to be blooming size – so the breeder, Eddie Walsh,  is holding them back for another year of growth.   

The other three cultivars will be coming into the USA sometime in mid March.  To read more about Eucomis in general on this blog, click blog or to go directly to the website click website.  Those of you who have ordered the 'Tiny Piny Collection' (one each of the four varieties) will receive a second package of 'Tiny Piny Opal' – the most popular cultivar thus far – if you have authorized substitutions, if not then we will be contacting you. 

NEXT SHOW COMING UP

If you are in the Seattle area next week (Feb. 8-12), come see us at the Northwest Flower and Garden Show at the Seattle Convention Center.  

We will be in two locations: our 6-booth island space at the entrance to the plant market where we will have our bulbs and other plants, as well as our Abbee Hats and Gifts boutique, where you will find our garden and fancy hats, hat pins,  handmade jewelry, original acrylic artwork by Dianna, wood turnings by Bob, Max-nip catnip, hand creams, and those terrific silk lanterns displayed at the Tacoma show over the weekend - shown on right.

Winter Blooming (forced) Potted Lily bulbs

While shopping at one of the big box stores the other day, we noticed containers of lovely Oriental lilies in full bloom for Christmas and realized some of you might be receiving potted lilies as a hostess gift or using them to add fragrance to your holiday decorations.

There are two concerns that we feel should be addressed.
   
#1 - Although native lily bulbs were regularly consumed by the North American Indians and people in the Orient for generations, those bulbs were truly "organic" - no harmful pesticides, fungicides or growth regulators were used.

Lily bulbs, as well as many other flower types, that are grown in greenhouses as cut flowers or in pots outside of their normal blooming period - mid summer for lilies - are subjected to an array of chemical treatments to control insects, fungus, and (in the case of full size lily varieties) to artifically shorten the height of the stem to make a consumer-friendly indoor "potted plant".  Be mindful of small children and pets should you be tempted to include potted lilies within your holiday decor.

Giggling Anne Marie & Max in 1999.

Cats and small children are very, very sensitive to chemicals and all parts of the bulb, stem, leaves and flowers would be infused with chemicals of greenhouse grown bulbs.  Lilies grown in your own garden (unless you are part of a chemical urban assault team) do not pose the same risk.  We have always had cats on our farm, in the house, barn and gardens - and all have lived to a ripe old age without any ill effects, even from trying to tackle hummingbirds feeding on the lily flowers or hunting mice under a pile of discarded lily stems. Family Pets in your garden.

Max, like Dianna, a bit more "grey" in 2011.

The problem lies with chemicals - pure and simple - if you have small children, cats or dogs in your house, please reconsider using greenhouse grown commercially forced flowers.  Period.

#2  - What happens when the flowers have faded on this lovely plant and it is 18 degrees F. outside?

You will need to keep the stems exposed to sunlight for the next few weeks in order to allow the bulbs to replenish themselves for bloom next year.  When the foliage begins to turn yellow, cut the stems down to soil level, remove from the soil, pack them into a ventilated plastic bag surrounded by pet bedding, coarse sawdust, dry peat moss or dry potting soil and then put them in the fridge to give them a "winter" until late February or March when you can plant them into your garden to enjoy for years to come.

Lily Bulb Shipping - UPDATE - All Areas

We are continuing to harvest lily bulbs - hand digging lilies in between rainy days,  plus our first frost was on the pumpkins last night – so we are moving fast to have all the bulbs delivered to the coldest states first.  Despite the strange summer weather here in the Pacific Northwest, we actually started shipping only 3 days later than last year and so now 90% the Northern Tier States, Northeast and Mountain area orders on file before October 1st have been mailed.  Yesterday (Friday), we started shipping to warmer areas of the East and Midwest and will be finishing up many of those states through Tuesday – then we start the West Coast addresses and the more recently placed orders no matter what the location. 

Phone and email replies will have a bit of a delay during the next 10 days while Dianna and Anne Marie exhibit at the Tacoma Holiday Food & Gift Festival all next week and Bob oversees both the shipping line and the office.  He will return phone calls and emails as quickly as possible, so please be patient – if you are directed to voice mail during business hours –  it means that either he is answering another call or is out in the packing barn.

Please check the website before ordering, we are updating the database inventory each evening, but some cultivars have only a few bulbs available and there are no more large bulbs in the field for this year, so please make a suggestion for an alternate choice should the need arise.
 
Don't procrastinate should you want a few more bulbs this fall.  If you would like a Spring 2012 catalog mailed to you (Alaska and lower 48 States only – we do not export) please use this link - Request a Catalog http://lilybulb.us1.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=736053fe082d0fe444eb73761&id=2e0f0cb2ea

Purple Poppies - shipping seed soon

Dianna's Purple Poppies - Although we had a late start on sowing seed this spring, we did have a decent crop of these highly decorative Papaver paeoniflorum.  Poppy seeds are sown on TOP of the soil because they need light to germinate and our heavy rainfall this spring - 30+ inches in 6 weeks with only a handful of "dry" days -  caused much stress in April and May because the fine seed washed away twice before the weather cooperated.  The volunteers scattered throughout the garden under trees and overhangs from spilled pods last year came up fine however - so we'll sow seed this fall after the ground freezes and cover the spaces with netting to keep the resident quail from happily searching out the seeds before their germination in early spring.  Our wild quail take "dust baths"  under the overhangs, forming cute little depressions in the driest areas during the summer, and in Fall hide out under our rhubarb clumps during rainstorms waiting for a moment to sneak out to munch.  As I look outside this morning, both they and the next-door chickens are greedily consuming our newly planted oats on the north edge of the field.  We sow the cover crops heavy, expecting some loss from the wildlife (and fowl escapees) - but using a cover crop makes our soil so wonderful for planting the next spring that the birds are generally forgiven.

Our strain of poppies makes smaller than normal pods - so even though the flowers are 4 to 5 inches in size -  it takes a lot of ripened seed for both the catalogs and the spring flower shows.  This year we only pre-sold packets until August then removed them from sale until we could judge the harvest.   Seed production was better than expected and we've made the "add to cart" buttons active again on the website, but there are no guarantee there will be any packets left for the spring flower shows.  Poppy seeds will NOT be in the Spring 2012 catalog so it is advised that you order now.

You can add one or more packets to an existing order on file without any extra shipping costs.  For customer who only ordered poppy seed for this fall - or paid to have it shipped early - Anne Marie will mail out the "seed only" orders from the office on Tuesday and Wednesday while we are still digging lily bulbs.

To add a packets of poppy seed to an order ALREADY on file - simply use the "contact us" form on the website and we'll charge whatever card you used for the bulbs before shipping.

If you also wish to add a few lily bulbs with the seed - or place a totally new order of ONLY poppy seed - please use the website checkout. If we are combining lily bulb orders or adding poppy seeds to your order, we'll adjust the shipping charge before charging your card.

What to do about moles this summer?

Click updated mole trap info to go to our website.  Our latest newsletter triggered email questions about how to control those moles already in the garden, so we've just added an external link to a trap manufacturer in Oregon whose product is quite effective.