A Shout-Out to Easy To Grow Bulbs Company

I do many product reviews on this site. I do them for a couple of reasons:

• I currently own a garden product that I like and I want to share that information with my readers.
• I've been given a garden item to trial and review, which is a good way for me to try new things and offer readers my "get down and dirty" gardener's opinion - good or bad.
• I've done business with a company and I've had a great experience, or one not so great.

After several orders with Easy To Grow Bulbs, I just have to share my extreme satisfaction with this company. They have not contacted me in any way relating to my blogging about their company, nor have I told them that I was going to do it. This is just me - a pleased customer - wanting to give a great company their due.

I first did business with Easy To Grow Bulbs in January 2007, when I ordered some amaryllis (Hippeastrum) bulbs.  I was pleased with the quality of the bulbs and got some gorgeous blooms from them that year, and later years too, because I keep my bulbs from year to year, planting them outside in summer.

Hippeastrum 'Grandeur' in 2009, purchased in 2007 from Easy To Grow Bulbs

Subsequent orders to the company were made, with once again, great results. A variety of bulb types have been in those orders and this year, I ended up placing two separate fall orders. The first arrived in good time and with the highest quality of bulbs.

Their bulbs come in nice mesh bags that I keep and use for storing summer bulbs over the winter. Attached to the top of the bags are the name of the bulb, with planting instructions. Only one thing could be done that would make the packing complete, and that would be to include a plastic plant marker that could be planted with the bulbs for easy identification. (Brent and Becky's Bulbs and High Country Gardens - also great companies that I do business with - do this.) But a grease pencil on popsicle sticks works well, too. After the bulbs flower in the spring, they get a more permanent marker.

Besides the great quality bulbs, which are some of the largest I've ever seen, what has me raving about Easy To Grow Bulbs right now comes under the label of customer service. I've always had great customer service from Kathleen and her bunch, and perhaps this isn't out of the norm, but I'm pleased all the same and wanted to say so.

First of all, Easy To Grow Bulbs has their fall-planted bulbs "on sale" earlier than most companies. Their prices are good anyway, but who doesn't love a sale? I think this is smart on their part, especially with so much competition out there. Personally, this allows me to buy them early, when the weather is still good for planting, yet not too warm to plant. Once that weather turns chilly, I'm out of the mood, and I'm less likely to buy bulbs, period. (Translation: Warm weather + Bulb sale = Larger order)

Second, if your order is over a certain amount - a reasonable $50 - you get a bonus pack of bulbs. Since I placed two orders this fall, I got two different bonus packs. They call them "Adventure Packs" and many of them are from The Flower Fields at Carlsbad Ranch. They're the only online distributor of bulbs from there, along with a handful of gardening catalogs and select garden centers there in California.

And third, they say they have speedy shipping, and it's true. I placed my last order on Tuesday and the bulbs were here by Friday. All the way from California to Ohio. We had Indian Summer all week and knew that it was to end abruptly on Saturday, so that quick service was important. This time of year, we could just as easily be shoveling snow. I was really, really happy when the mailman delivered those bulbs on Friday.

By the way, my Adventure Packs contained good stuff! In the first order, they included a 10-count package of Tulipa dasystemon 'Tarda', a species tulip. I LOVE species tulips, and have many, but not this one. I do now! In the second order, I nearly jumped up and down, because my Adventure Pack contained five of something I very nearly ordered - Leucojum aestivum 'Gravetye Giant', often called "summer snowflake," since they are a late-blooming spring bulb.

Leucojum aestivum 'Gravetye Giant'

Tulipa dasystemon 'Tarda'

Easy To Grow Bulbs markets themselves as sellers of "Bigger, better bulbs for warm weather gardens." Don't let that "warm weather" part keep you away, if you're a northern gardener like I am. The bulbs I've received from them are first quality and grow just fine in my zone 5 garden.

They are also in the Dave's Garden "Watchdog 30" list of the highest-rated companies in their entire database of 1,172 mail order garden companies. That's saying something. You know who rates them? Customers like me.

Spring is On the Way!

A small flock of bluebirds were in our yard today! First spotted in the large old oak tree out front, then later in the backyard, they likely were just passing through on their way south. I saw a male checking out the bluebird house on the shagbark hickory tree, where a family lived earlier in the summer. By late afternoon, they were gone.

There were other birds - blue jays, robins, nuthatches, finches, and the ever-present sparrows. If I closed my eyes and listened to their singing and soaked up the unseasonably warm sun on my skin, it felt like spring.

Then I opened my eyes and walked around the yard, and I saw signs of spring everywhere!

The Kousa dogwood (Cornus kousa) has its 2011 buds
ready to go!

The Buckeye (Aesculus glabra) tree's swollen buds make it
apparent that it's ready for spring, too.

Magnolia x. loebneri 'Leonard Messel' is all fuzzed up for spring!

Yellow scabiosa (Scabiosa ochroleuca) is blooming
like it's summer.

The tree peony (Paeonia suffruticosa) is dressed up
in magenta buds.

The lilacs (Syringa vulgaris 'Sensation') sit in wait for their
signal to grow.

The grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum) are making a trial
run, but I think they're just reminding me of where they are so I
don't try to plant more bulbs there!

The elderberry (Sambucus racemosa 'Sutherland Gold') is nearly
bursting at the seams, ready for spring!

The spinach I planted in August is providing yummy salad fixings.

The yarrow (Achillea) is still blooming...

...as is the Gaillardia...

...and even the Offspring-of-the-Wave petunias are still going at it,
in spite of several hard frosts.

It's the time of year when the weather can change in a heartbeat though, so these spring-like days that almost feel like summer - yet not - are not lost on me. I'm taking advantage of them by getting the gardens ready for winter and the last of the bulbs planted.

I'm also taking time to just drink it in.  I close my eyes again and try to commit to memory the warm feel of the sun on my skin so that I can recall it when winter threatens to beat me down with its dreariness. Or maybe, just maybe, this really is spring and we're going to skip winter this year. The year has already been one for the books, so why not?

You have to believe in happiness,
Or happiness never comes ...
Ah, that's the reason a bird can sing -
On his darkest day he believes in Spring.
~Douglas Malloch

Bluebird from earlier this year

Is There An Entomologist in the House?

As I was cleaning up in the gardens yesterday, I came across this cocoon on a small arborvitae shrub. I've no idea what made it and I'm calling on the power of the internet to hopefully help identify what might be spending the winter in it.  It measures about two inches long and an inch in diameter.

Since the shrub is located under a maple tree and we've seen the caterpillars for the Polyphemus and Cecropia moths on that tree, perhaps it's one of those. I wonder when in spring or summer the inhabitant will emerge so that I can keep watch and maybe see it come out.

I saw a similar cocoon on another shrub a week or so ago, but I can't remember just where it was, so this isn't the only one we've got. Any ideas as to what this is?