There’s still hope if you haven’t ordered spring flowering bulbs!
For all the procrastinators who ignored my advice to order spring flowering bulbs way back in July, I’m sure the mail-order companies still have many, many bulbs for sale, if you are still planning to order some.
Or maybe you’ll always procrastinate about ordering bulbs online? Maybe it just isn’t the way you like to shop. Maybe you like to see the bulbs before you buy them. Maybe, maybe, maybe…
Well, good news! If my sampling of two garden centers is any indication, the garden centers have actual spring flowering bulbs for sale right now. “Now”, which is admittedly a concept many procrastinators don’t understand, you can overcome your procrastination with a little impulse buying, because you can actually pick out the bulbs you want. You can hold them in your hand. You can pick out the best one! You can buy them and take them home with no delay before your temptation to wait kicks in.
At one garden center, they had the bulbs in bulk with little white bags to put them in. That sealed the deal for me. I bought some Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ just for old time’s sake because I remember shopping for bulbs that way with my Dad. We’d fill up bags with all kinds of tulips and crocuses and write on the outside what each one was. As I recall, he was more partial to the fancier tulips like the fringe and parrot varieties, and I just liked them all. But I digress…
So to all who have been procrastinating about buying bulbs, wondering if you should or shouldn’t get them, who to order them from if you do decide to get them, and if you’d even get them planted if you had them, get thee to a garden center and just buy some.
You can worry “later”, a timeframe most procrastinators embrace, about if you’ll actually get them planted. And when the time comes to plant, we all promise to remind you… Hortense Hoelove, Dr. Horfreud, and me. Even Thorn Goblinfly will pitch in!
In the interest of full disclosure, after I bought my little bag of Allium bulbs, the very helpful employee said I should watch for the bulbs to be half-price later in the season. I hesitate to tell some of you thrifty procrastinators this because it will give you an excuse to “wait”, a favorite activity of procrastinators, and limit your impulse purchases
But once the bulbs are half price, there should be no more excuses.
I love coming home with piles of those little bags stuffed with bulbs. It is exciting just thinking about them.
We bought ours from a nursery a couple of weeks ago. I love the bagging up your own type of bulb buying. We planted tulips and daffs for ages at the weekend – spring = hope in my head. I have planted happiness.
Plus we are also getting lots of free stuff from a magazine! What's not to love about that?
I just posted about ordering bulbs yesterday and thought I was ahead of schedule because I don't plant mine until October. How funny!
I'm waiting until the 1st of October to purchase mine…I hope that's okay with all of you? ha ha
That's kind of funny! I just impulsively bought a bag of allium, purple sensation, and a bag of parrot fringed tulip bulbs. Can't wait to see them bloom in the spring! I too remember the parrot tulips from years back.
But Carol, if I go to the garden center to buy bulbs I know the impulse buying won't stop at them. There will be those end of the season 75% off perennials and those 40-60% off flower containers and. and, and. Well you get the picture. It is just not safe for me to venture into those places. 🙂
Thanks for reminding me to get some allium bulbs! I just love the color and shape of those blooms! Unfortunately, my procrastination cost me several bags of summer-flowering bulbs. I bought a bunch in the mid-season (b'twn late winter and early spring) only to let them sit all summer long in my garage. I just never got around to the task of planting them…and I have my reasons…but any reason to procrastinate isn't good enough when it comes to planting;-( (Especially for those of us who 'love' to plant!!)
Uh-oh, you shouldn't have told me about the 1/2 price sale:) Yes, I'm still procrastinating. But I do have a catalog marked with possibilities to be narrowed down, and the local garden center is fully stocked at the moment. I like to do both–look at the pretty pictures in the catalogs and order some, and also hold some in my hands to choose the best ones at the garden center. I will add to your warning, though–if someone procrastinates too long, the best bulbs at the garden center will be gone.
As to your veggie post on Tuesday, I guess I'll say c, except I haven't pulled enough of the dead plants. That was on my to-do list for this week, but the rain has interfered. Carol, I think your rabbits finally got the message!
I plan on shopping Sunday for the start of my bulbs. I do plan on ordering from High Country Garden soon for my xeric wildflower bulbs.
Good to know they are still out there. I will like finding the sale bulbs, too, but won't hold my breath. = )
Thanks for reminding me. I didn't buy mail order but pan to go out this weekend bulb hunting. Since I started blogging I am discovering all kinds of bulbs that do well in Austin and I don't have them.
Bulb shopping is so much fun. It brings out the dreamer in the gardener, imagining what all these colors and foliage will look like after a long winter. When I live up north, I would take some into the house for a little winter color.
Buy now, buy again later; that is my practice.
End of season bulbs work great in my climate, because we don't have frozen ground in December or ever. The chance taken is that the more desirable bulbs will sell out.
It makes for a poor garden scene when the planned white daffodils have to be replaced with orange centers and yellow petals, the blue hyacinths with muscari. It makes for a great flower bed if you have room for whatever is on sale, and twice as many as regular priced.