I never use bone meal. I just dig a hole and plant the bulbs. But I do fertilize my bulbs in the springtime as I get a big bag of bulb fertilizer and just sprinkle it on top of the ground around the plants.

Yes, Mike, you can mail order day-old baby chicks. Newly hatched chicks do not need to eat or drink for a day or two so they ship well. Normally an order is a minimum of 25 chicks so that they keep each other warm. My post office calls me as soon as they come in so that I can pick them up promptly. Adults can be mailed too but that is expensive.

WHO KNEW ??? That's amazing.
I'm assuming they don't travel from one coast to the other, right ?

Calsurf73 said:
Back to chickens for a moment. Having been born and raised in the city and not knowing anything about chickens, I have what is probably a really stupid question: Are you all saying that you can MAIL ORDER baby chicks and they get delivered in the mail or via UPS etc and they're actually ALIVE and in a box ???
I'd be ready to lay an egg too, if I were them, after going through that ordeal !

YES day old chicks ship very well. In fact they have a bit of yolk sack on their tummies they can live off for a few days and why you allowed to ship them. You can ship adults as well. I ship geese all over the U.S. both new babies and adults. We ship them Express Mail/over night. The shipping boxes have breathing holes in them and are made specifically for shipping live birds. Birds from Parrots to Peafowl are shipped via the United States Postal Service but not UPS or Fed Ex. Other live critters are shipped through the mail as well such as tropical fish, reptiles ,dogs, cats etc.

P.S. Mike I live in Michigan and ship all over the U.S. including the west coast.
Lives are sent via airmail so its like hopping on a jet and flying to wherever in the U.S.
No big deal.

But I will get mine locally, as I only want between 4 and 5,

Last night my mind was wandering and I was thinking about the crocus. Many years ago I remember that I bought a bag of the large flowered crocus mix locally. In fact it was at a Franks. Those went out of business many years ago already. But my crocus thrived and multiplied and put on a great show for many years. But as I did my garden redos, terraces and compleatly redoing beds, the crocus seem to have been the looser and each year got less and less. So the big push to get crocus back in the garden. I got 500 large flowered mix from Van Engelen and planted ALL of them in the southside rose garden. The rest (many different types) I planted in various places around the garden. 1,150 crocus in total so the crocus show should be good next spring.

But I would like to do more so I just know I will be ordering more for next fall. There are so many places the crocus can go, should go. I can immagine what they would look like planted en mass. Usually when I get a vision of how something in the garden could look, I go out and make it happen. So I just know more crocus are in my future.

Calif_Sue said:But I will get mine locally, as I only want between 4 and 5,

That's the way to go Sue if you can find what you are looking for locally.
Some people will split an order with a friend if they don't want to order the minimum.
Some hatcheries have smaller minimums too.

Falling branches didn't cause too much damage, but my pretty copper arbor fell over and demolished Outrageous. Luckily, I have another Outrageous in a different part of the garden. I guess I'll have to leave the arbor on the ground for now because this series of storms isn't over.

Zuzu - Send it my way? Please? Purdy please? Look at my calendar for this month. Take note of the days in orange/red.

It is very tempting to buy more bulbs at the Van Engelen 40% off sales as those prices are really good. Even with all the stuff that is sold out I found 1,000 more crocus that I would love to add. But I am not going to order. I feel that it is too late in the year this being the first of December already. What do I do if the ground feezes? Not going to risk it.

Admirable restraint!

Ha, very difficult for me to manage.

There should be a 12 step program for those of us who tend to get obsessive with these things !
I investigated such a program when I got hooked on daylilies, but all I ran into were enablers.

Moderation is not my stong suit. At least not when it comes to the garden. I tend to go overboard no matter what type of plants I add to my garden.

I was just reading a post on the Daylilies For Northern Climates e-mail group where the poster an hour south of Toronto Canada still has bulbs to plant. Must be really running out of time up there to get them done and planted.

Random pics from our first snow day.

Very pretty!

love the pics right now we just have slush yuk

Beautiful pictures. I just LOVE your geese The turkeys are pretty also