Each year I think about ordering bulbs for fall planting each spring on line but I don't do it. Then fall comes around and I buy afew bags of mixed daffodils locally and sometimes some tulips. This year I decided the heck with it, I am going to order NOW!!!!! This way I am committed. They arrive in the fall and I will have to find the time and energy to plant them. I had better, I spent five hundred bucks on this, yikes. Don't know if that calls for a smiley face or a big frown. Certainly in the spring when they bloom, it will be big time lots of smiles.

This all goes with my plan of cottage garden and lots of color look around here and will add to the daylilies, lilies and iris I already have and am adding around here. Spring bulbs belong with my plan, I just have not gotten too much done on that front. It seems to me that a bed with daylilies, lilies and spring bulbs of daffs and tulips is the perfect combo and that is what I have been planning for as I put in my daylily beds.

I ordered lots of tulips. Stuck mostly to the Darwin hybrids as that is the best bet for coming up year after year but snuck in afew others too because I just could not resist.

Got a hundred each of -
Beauty of Apeldoorn
Darwin Hybrid Mixture
Gudoshnik


Then I bought ten of each of these others to do groupings of them around the garden. Not sure if I should plant ten in each cluster or do each as two of five and have tulips in more spots?
Monte Carlo
Tequilla Sunrise
Synaeda Amor
Grand Perfection
Big Chief
Orange Queen
Marit
Jaap Groot
Candy Apple Delight

Gezz, I didn't bother to count them up before I hit the send button. I kinda went overboard here at 390 tulops. I do love tulips though.

My dad grew tulips when I was a kid and they were his favorite flower. Most years at Eastertime I can remember mom and me being posed in the garden in our easter outfits after going to church in front of the bed of tulips. Brings back lots of nostalgia but that is not why I love them. I just think they are lovely and I like lots of bloom all season long. I like that to start in the spring and tulips are very colorful and elegant too :-))

Then on to the Daffodils. Those are my favorite spring blooms. Instead of any landscaping mixtures as I usually get I just picked fancy ones in groups of ten mostly but uped those to groups of 50 for two of them.

50 groups-
York Minster
Maria

Then 20 group of-
Cum Laude

The rest in groups of ten-
Full Throttle
High Society
Pinza
Chromacolor
Perfect Lady
Double Smiles
Falconet

So I only have 190 daffs, which is less than I bought last fall in the local cheapo mix. But I went for the fancy ones I do not have any of. I am going to plant these fancy ones in my favorite gardenbeds in small groupings.

Last on the order were 50 Sky Beauty Dutch Iris and 10 Crocus olivieri balansae - Zwanenburg. Bith too beautiful to pass up.

I need to order some crocus mixes somewhere else as they didn't really have what I wanted crocus wise at Brent and Beckies. I want some mixed bags of both the early snow crocus and the large Dutch flowering that I have already growing around here.

Wonderful list of goodies Rita! I've only got a couple of the Daffs on your list, Chromacolor and Falconet. Chromacolor is gorgeous, one of my favorites, and Falconet is so fragrant, love those tazettas.

This is really a big thing for me. I do buy daffs most Falls locally but never anything but the common yellow or a bag of cheepo mix. I decided I really did need some of those new fany kinds as I do just love daffs.

Oh, you're going to so love experiencing more of these wonderful, modern Daffodils! I've found them quite addictive. Such permanence with so little effort, at the time of year I need blooms the most- it's easy to become addicted.

There are so many different fancy orange or pink trumpets ones nowadays. I guess I don't have to stick to just yellow daffs anymore.

Rita, are you seeing sprouts from your new bulbs? I'm looking forward to pics of your colorful spring garden!

Hey, it's finially spring after a very long winter. Yes, yes, everything is sprouting. My daffs are up really well although not too tall on the folliage yet. But many of them have the bloom stems coming already. No blooms yet, too early.

The tulips are just coming up, in fact some places in the garden were I planted them they are not up yet. Mostly the tulips are breaking ground in the sunnier spots.

Later in the fall after my Brent and Beckies order, I ordered even MORE bulbs, this time from Scheepers. 200 more tulips and about 300 more daffodils. I got some various daff mixes at Scheepers. They have nice mixes. Plus I ordered Dutch iris there, over 600 of them and those are all up. Should be a glorious spring when my bulbs bloom.

Oh I can't wait to see your pics! It's going to be so gorgeous! I love Dutch Iris, but they typically are just a one year show for me. In lots of parts of the country folks report they perennialize nicely. Oddly, it looks like some that I planted 3 or 4 years ago may do something again this year.

I got a Daff mix from Scheepers a few years ago and there were some really pretty and unusual ones in the mix.

Bulb season is under way here, the little naturalized species (Narcissus pseudonarcissus), February Gold, King Alfred, Jetfire, Itzim, and Ice King are in full bloom. It reached 70 degrees here today! It felt so good to be outside in the garden all day, I wrapped it up by bringing in a bouquet of Daffs Some Hyacinths started opening today too.

That's the thing with Dutch Iris. It seems to be such a hit or miss thing. I know some people do really well with them while other people go bust. If I am happy with the blooms, and I think I will be, then I will buy more this fall, plant them elsewhere (as in not were I have theses) and just wait and see if the first go round comes up or not. It wouldn't be the first thing around here that decreases. Tulips are fabulous for me the spring after planting and then slowely decrease following springs but I do love tulips so much.

The great thing about Dutch Iris is they're inexpensive, so it's feasible to use them as annuals. I love that they don't require much space, clumps can be positioned among other plants and they just bloom and disappear without unsightly dying foliage.

Afew years ago I didn't know what Dutch Iris were. But I saw pictures of the flowers and once I did and learned about them, I was totally hooked. I think the flowers are the most pretty things to be seen. They are not really expensive but I planted 700 of them, which numbers do add up. Plus the fact that I have to figgure in all the work of planting them. But I am deffinately planning on getting more this fall.

I have been planning my garden for years now for the succession of blooms effect. Been working on it and I have been doing really well with that plan. I have spring bulbs and added afew most falls but I knew for years I needed more. Last fall I had the garden to were I could finially add major numbers and that is what I did. But in spite of that there are many places that still need bulbs in order for it too look like what I have in mind. But hopefully I can work on that.

I will start to take pictures again as soon as there are things blooming. Unfortunatly my computer crashed over the winter and I lost years worth of pictures that were on my hard drive and are gone forever. But I upload pictures that I want to post to photobucket so all those are fortunately still there.

Newyorkrita, heart sick over your loss of your photo's, but so happy to see you are going full throttle ahead with the fall bulb orders. By the way I love N. Full Throttle and many of the others on both of your list.

I have my started working on my fall orders too. It is easier to make notes of what additions are needed and where in the spring as things are blooming and then actually put those wants on a working order than trying to remember or decipher my notes in the fall. I will wait until Van Engelen, eflowergarden, & McClure and Zimmerman post their fall choices until I finish the ones that I have started.

B&B working list so far.

Crocus kosaninii 'April View'
Narcissus - Beryl
Narcissus Clare
Narcissus Hummingbird
Narcissus Lord of the Rings
Narcissus Roulette
Narcissus Viktoria
Narcissus York Minster
Tulipa Fire Wings

WFF working order so far

Galanthus elwesii
Iris Discovery dutch iris
Narcissus Maximus historic 1576

But I did send in my ARD order and it was a big one.

Hyacinthus orientalis 'Gipsy Queen'
Muscari Latifolium:
Allium miniature 'Sphaerocephalon':
Allium tall 'Ivory Queen':
Chionodoxa luciliae:
Allium tall 'Multibulbosum':
Anemone blanda 'White Splendour':
Allium miniature 'Moly':
Narcissi miniature 'Baby Moon':
Narcissi miniature 'Sun Disc':
Narcissi small cupped 'Birma':
Crocus species 'Ruby Giant':
Crocus species 'Tricolor':
Crocus species 'Whitewell Purple':
Fritillaria imperialis 'Aurora':
Scilla Siberica:
Allium giant 'Mont Blanc':
Scilla Amesthystina:
Hyacinthoides hispanica 'Blue':
Hyacinthoides hispanica 'White':
Iris Miniature 'Reticulata J.S. Dyt':
Tulipa darwin hybrid 'Salmon Impression':
Tulipa fosteriana 'Flaming Purissima':
Tulipa kaufmanniana 'Concerto':
Tulipa kaufmanniana 'Hearts Delight':
Tulipa kaufmanniana 'Showwinner':
Tulipa lily flowering 'Burgundy':
Tulipa parrot 'Rococo':
Tulipa single late 'Maureen':
Tulipa triumph 'Angel's Wish':
Tulipa viridiflora 'Spring Green'

Wow. Who is ARD? I can't figgure it out. I have really been tempted to order more bulbs and have been already looking many times at Brent and Beckies and Colorblends. Scheepers too but they onlly have 2010 listed for looking, not buying yet. But I am not going to buy yet even though everything is so tempting. I will wait until everything has bloomed so that I can better decide what it is I need and what I liked the best.

Not all my pictures from past years were lost, only the ones actually stored on my computer. As soon as things start blooming, I take lots of pictures and post lots too on many forums. So I always upload the best shots so I can post (like on Gardenweb) so I still have all the many pictures on photobucket. So that turned out to be a big advantage of having pictures off site :-))

I read about them through PollyK. They are a wholesale house, but gave me an account. They had a free freight offer for early purchase which was fine with me. I am planting a new area, so I needed a mess of minor bulbs aside from Narcissus. The tulips will go in the older beds that are behind the deer fence, which the new bed is not. Here is the link. Read the reviews, which are good, but like Van Engelen they package them in larger amounts which works for many of them for me. Patti

http://davesgarden.com/product...

I ordered mine already from ADR too, Patti. That free shipping was too good to pass up. I must say all their bulbs have been excellent. And their shipping is reasonable anyway.

Those Dutch Iris came up really strongly this spring.

I loved all my bulbs from last year. Brent and Beckies had the 10 percent off if you order before July 1st so I ordered tulips and daffodils again this year at the end of June. Not as many as last year but still.