Blog of the Month: Each Little World Says “Go Big Red!”

        “An artist by training, a journalist by trade, and a gardener by choice,” Linda Brazill left 28 years of newspaper work in 2008 and, since she “couldn’t imagine a life without writing,” she launched Each Little World, a blog devoted to the things she likes best: “food, art, books, history, textiles, a bit of politics, and mainly gardening.” Linda gardens in the frozen wilds of Madison, Wisconsin, but her writing will interest gardeners throughout the upper half of the country at least. (A gardener is a gardener, right?) She’s a big fan of Old House Gardens, too, and other small, specialist nurseries. In a recent blog she spotlights our family-heirloom “Wisconsin Red” dahlia and ends by saying “I can picture a big bouquet of these beauties adorning [University of Wisconsin] tail-gate parties all over the state next fall. Go Big Red! Go OHG!” Martagon lilies and double tulips are featured in other recent blogs, and don’t miss “Great-grandmother’s Bloom Day” for an inspiring family photo of her husband Mark’s great-grandmother standing in the snow in front of her log cabin with a beautiful pot of daffodils she forced in full bloom. Now that’s garden history! (April 2010)

Southern Living’s Steve Bender Keeps Us Laughing (and Blushing)

        Southern Living’s long-time garden editor is one of the funniest guys we know. Last month, he praised us so profusely in his “Grumpy Gardener” blog that we were blushing and muttering “aw, shucks” – until we got to the part where he wrote that our hometown, Ann Arbor, is “the home of the Michigan State Spartans” and “Scott is a die-hard Spartans fan.” If you follow college sports, you know he’s got that exactly backwards – and it’s nothing to laugh about! But of course we did. Thanks, Steve, and Go BLUE! (March 2010)

Link of the Month: Well-Loved Books from Heiko

        Winter is for reading, and for 20 years now we’ve been turning to Calendula Horticultural Books to help us learn more about antique flowers and gardening. In his December catalog, owner Heiko Miles (who by day works in a small accounting office) wrote that “the hard economic conditions that caused a significant drop in book sales made me decide to scale back somewhat with the book business this year.” But, he adds, “I would rather sell old and rare books than do any other work. I love the wonder books create, the dreams they ignite, and the pleasure they provide. Books are my friends that smile to me from the shelf, full of memories of time shared together. They beckon me to read them again and start the adventure afresh. . . They provide me with a sense of belonging.” And Heiko feels the same way about plants. “Our books and our gardens,” he writes, “both fill an almost primal need within.”
        For hundreds of old, soul-satisfying garden books priced from $5 to over $1000, visit Heiko at calendulabooks.com. And please tell him we said hello. (Jan. 2010)

Site of the Month: For Those Who Love Hyacinth Vases

        Julie Berk has fallen in love with forcing vases, and she’s sharing her enthusiasm in a brand-new website, hyacinthvases.org.uk. There you’ll find colorful photos of all sorts of vases, images from antique books and catalogs (don’t miss the Etruscan Revival vases), reports on her latest bulb-shopping forays, and a “Collectors Community” for email discussions with fellow enthusiasts. Though far from slick, the site is well worth exploring, and Julie has big plans for developing it as an educational resource. She’s already posted an illuminating, 10-page article from the Glass Association Journal that’s a must-read for serious fans. (Click on each page till you get it to readable size.) (Nov. 2009)

Laughing with Bulbs: Doonesbury’s Zonker

        Even Doonesbury’s Zonker Harris is planting bulbs this fall. For six days of laughs, go to doonesbury.com/strip/dailydose/index.html?uc_full_date=20090928. Click the “Next” tab at the top of each comic to see them all. There’s also a link just above that to “Latest FAQ: Why do bulbs keep coming up in Doonesbury?”
        We bet you’ll recognize a bit of yourself – and us – in the strips. Happy laughing! (Oct. 2009)

Blog of the Month: Early American Gardens

        “A museum in a blog,” that’s how Barbara Sarudy describes her entertaining blog devoted to American gardens of the 1700s and early 1800s. Much as I love her landmark book, Gardens and Gardening in the Chesapeake, 1700-1805, Sarudy’s blog is more fun to read because it’s so personal and meandering, filled with, as she says, “snippets of garden history and images that fascinate me.” Though she’s clearly enjoying herself, Sarudy is a serious and expert historian. As in a museum, she presents us with authentic artifacts, both written and visual, giving us the opportunity to enjoy and draw our own conclusions from them.
        A few of my favorite entries are the ones about arbors, bee-hives, and slave gardens. Be sure to check out the “boring assumptions, introductions, and housekeeping rules” in the left-hand column, too. This is some of Sarudy’s most interesting writing, and spot-on. (June 2009)

Site of the Month: Have You Discovered the Joy of Google Books?

        We love to learn, and we’re constantly searching for more information about the history and care of the bulbs we sell. Although we have a good-sized collection of antique garden books, we discovered not too long ago that Google has a much, much better one. And it’s staffed by an amazing librarian called Search who can find the exact few words you’re looking for in millions of books.
        Try it yourself. Go to Google, click on the word “more” at the top of the screen, and then on the drop-down list that appears, click “Books.” Enter anything you like in the Books search box – say, Madame Chereau iris, or heirloom dahlias, or growing bulbs in Texas – and see what turns up. Access to the results varies from book to book, from “full view” to the pretty much useless “snippet view,” but you almost always get something worthwhile and interesting. Have fun, but be careful – it can become addicting! (Apr. 2009)

Blog of the Month: Ranting About Real Gardens

        Don’t be scared off by its name. GardenRant.com is one of the most popular of all the thousands of garden blogs, and for good reason. It’s the collective work of four terrific writers including Elizabeth Licata, who seems to grow and love bulbs almost as much as we do, and Amy Stewart, whose Flower Confidential is one of my all-time favorite garden books. To quote from their “manifesto,” they’re “Convinced that gardening MATTERS. . . In love with real, rambling, chaotic, dirty, bug-ridden gardens,” and “Delighted by people with a passion for plants.” That’s my kind of gardeners, and I urge you to give them a read.
        Why not start with Elizabeth’s recent blog about us? Be sure to check out the nice comments from fellow blog-readers at the end of it, too, and maybe add one yourself! Elizabeth has many other entries about bulbs, including recent ones about forcing and bulb FAQs, but just about anywhere you wander at GardenRant, you’ll find something well worth reading. (Nov. 2008)

Blog of the Month: Southern Living’s Grumpy Gardener

        “An outstanding mail-order nursery,” that's what Southern Living garden editor Steve Bender calls us in a recent posting at his blog. Steve calls himself the Grumpy Gardener, but that’s because he can't call himself the Really Funny and Also Expert Gardener. Though he tends to tone down his humor in his magazine writing, in his blog you’ll see more of the Steve who cracked us up in the modern classic, Passalong Plants.
        His praise-filled review of “the Old House Gardens difference” spotlights several of our best bulbs for warmer gardens including our true Byzantine glad which he describes as both “gaudier than Liberace at the Moulin Rouge” and “a single-malt Scotch for your garden.” Don’t miss his blogs titled “Squirrel Problem? Fire Away!” and, right in time for Halloween, the “Toilet Paper Miracle.” Like gardening, laughing is good for you. (late Oct. 2008)

Blog of the Month: The Undaunted Heirloom Gardener

        Despite deer, shade, clay soil, and five kids, the Heirloom Gardener of Chatham, NJ, grows beautiful roses, tulips, dahlias, and more – and finds time to blog about it! Don’t miss her “What I’ve Learned about Growing Tulips in New Jersey: Protecting from Squirrels and Deer, Planting in Clay Soil, and Creating Colorful Combinations.” Heirloom tulips, she writes, are “much more tolerant of my less-than-ideal clay soil,” and she includes multiple photos of her lovely tulip combos (and more here) with names of the varieties in case you get inspired to try something similar.
        In January she blogged about our heirloom dahlias (“my favorite cut flower and . . . super easy to grow”), in February she praised our wax-dipped winter aconites, and just last month she wrote, “My two favorite new lilies this year were . . . both from Old House Gardens.” Our double tiger lily she says is “far more attractive” than our catalog photo (we agree!), and the fragrance of ‘Excelsior’ is “phenomenal . . . unlike any other.” Of course she writes about plenty of other things besides our bulbs (gardening with kids, for example), but we’ll let you discover those pleasures yourself. Enjoy! (Sept. 2008)

Blog of the Month: Henry’s Lily, Snow-on-the-Mount, and Beetle Mania

        Blooming at over seven feet, Henry’s lily was a hit in Marta McDowell’s front yard this summer. “I have a particular fondness for this heirloom, so tall and gangly and so very orange,” she writes. ”I’d suggest Old House Gardens Heirloom Bulbs as an excellent source, and don’t miss their electronic newsletter.”
        Always fun to read, Marta blogs about “digging in the dirt, growing flowers and vegetables, garden history, horticulture and nature.” Recent pieces have included surprise lilies in her Aunt Mary’s garden (with snapshots from the 1960s), native snow-on-the-mountain (a favorite self-sower here that I got from my grandmother thirty years ago), and her “Top Ten Reasons Why I Hate Japanese Beetles.” Read them all at martamcdowell.blogspot.com . (Sept. 2008)

Blog of the Month: “Delirious About Bulbs” (and ‘Hyperion’ Daylily)

        First up is a recent blog by Pomona Belvedere at tulipsinthewoods.com. “OHG bulbs are the top of the top of the bulb world,” she writes, “big, fat, healthy, and bursting with (often) multiple blooms.” She calls our catalog “fun” and “clearly written by people who are delirious about bulbs, and don’t care who knows it.” (She’s right!) And “for those who enjoy diversity,” she adds, “shopping at Old House Gardens is a way to support people who preserve it – and to do a little preserving ourselves.”
        Don’t miss Pomona’s blog about ‘Hyperion’ daylily, too, in which she praises its graceful shape, fragrance, and willingness to bloom with just a few hours of sun. Then take a look at her “Heirloom Plants” and “Bulbs” categories, and if you’re like us you’ll find yourself reading on and on! (Aug. 2008)

Garden Bloggers Share Their Thoughts, Praise Our Bulbs

        Whether you’re not quite sure what blogs are (that was us not too long ago) or read them every day, blogs are a fun way to learn from all sorts of spirited folks who are brave enough to share their garden life and thoughts online.
        And more and more are blogging about our bulbs – which we love, thank you very much! We’ll be sharing some of these with you here in a new series we’re calling “Blog of the Month.” So send us your links! (Aug. 2008)

Link of the Month: America’s Liveliest Old Cemetery

        Cemeteries don’t often show up on lists of favorite vacation spots, but if more cemeteries were like the Old City Cemetery in Lynchburg, Virginia, that could change. I spent last weekend there – speaking at a sold-out garden symposium – and loved it!
        Laid out in 1806, the cemetery has been revived as a multi-faceted community resource by an eager and ever-growing group of volunteers. There are guided tours year-round on everything from historic daffodils to “Lynchburg’s Early Bawdy Ladies.” There’s a chapel that’s popular for weddings as well as funerals, and four small, reconstructed buildings that house archives and museum displays. Larger-scale artifacts rescued from local sites ornament the grounds, including antique fencing, marble columns, and a huge iron pitcher that once poured water into the Lynchburg reservoir. Perhaps more surprising, there are bee-hives (with honey sold as “Died and Gone to Heaven”), goats (helping to clear invasive plants from a steep ravine), a composting education center, and an award-winning cookbook. To learn more and get inspired, visit gravegarden.org . (March 2008)

Link of the Month: Historic Sewers

        We’re not kidding. Sewers are essential to modern life and critical to the health of our waterways, wildlife, and all of Nature. They can be pretty darn interesting, too – as we think you’ll agree once you take a look at garden writer Adam Levine’s website The History of Philadelphia’s Watersheds and Sewers at phillyH2o.org/index.htm.
        Adam is a smart, funny guy, an avid gardener, and an award-winning author. In 1998 he hired on as a part-time “historical consultant” for the Philadelphia Water Department, and soon he was hooked. Adam’s site is rich with historic photos and maps, compelling data, and plenty of laughs. The best place to start may be his article “Down Under!” which is subtitled “Tales from the city sewer system, or why I should have worn a raincoat.” Once you start, we bet you’ll read more, and before long you’ll have a whole new perspective on your own local watershed and sewers. It’s enlightening! (Feb. 2008)

Link of the Month: Elegant Vases, Our Dahlias, and Martha Stewart

        We’re always looking for interesting vases, and sometimes they find us. Last month our good customer Frances Palmer of Weston, Connecticut, emailed us a few photos of our dahlias “in the garden and in my pots” — and wow! It turns out Frances is a renowned potter whose classic yet quirky tableware and vases are being featured in the February Martha Stewart Living, on newsstands now.
        “Thank you for such incredible flowers,” Frances wrote us. You can see her photos at oldhousegardens.com/FrancesPalmer.asp and more of our dahlias and her pottery at francespalmerpottery.com/FP_about.htm . Don’t miss her “whimsical pots,” including two filled with our ‘Thomas Edison’ and ‘Deuil du Roi Albert’.
       Thanks, Frances! We want one of everything you make! (Jan. 2008)

Link of the Month: Slow Food USA

       If traditional foods are an important part of your holidays, you may be a “slow food” lover! The opposite of fast food, slow food is everything “from the spice of Cajun cooking to the delicious simplicity of produce at a farmers’ market; from heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables to handcrafted cheeses and other artisanal products.” Slow Food USA is a “non-profit educational organization dedicated to supporting and celebrating the food traditions of North America.” It believes that “pleasure and quality in everyday life can be achieved by slowing down, respecting the convivial traditions of the table, and celebrating the diversity of the earth's bounty.” If that sounds good to you, check out their website at slowfoodusa.org/index.html . (Nov. 2007)

Link of the Month: Preserving Historic Landscapes

        Wow! The website of the Cultural Landscape Foundation — the country’s leading non-profit dedicated to preserving all sorts of historic landscapes — has recently been upgraded and it’s a gem. Rich with information, resources, and beautiful images, it features major sections on Landscapes at Risk, Pioneers of Landscape Design, Outreach & Education, Stewardship Stories, and In the News. You’ll also find a definition of cultural landscapes, a term that’s still unfamiliar to many people but which embraces “public parks, historic sites, gardens, scenic highways, college campuses, farmland, cemeteries,” and other historic landscapes that both express our shared culture and enrich our daily lives. (Aug. 2007)

Link of the Month: Vintage Garden Books

        Reading old garden books is one of our favorite ways to learn about plants and gardens of the past. While shopping recently at AbeBooks.com, a terrific internet source for used and rare books, we stumbled upon “In the Garden: Let Your Collection Bloom.” This brief essay on collecting old garden books includes links to an assortment of classics ranging from a paperback edition of A Southern Garden for $3 to a hand-colored 1794 copy of Repton’s Landscape Gardening for $25,000. (June 2007)

Link of the Month: Heirlooms and Murder

        Regan Culver is the prime suspect in the poisoning death of her father. But don’t worry, it’s just for fun. She’s the herb-farming, plant-loving main character in Rosemary for Remembrance, one of an entertaining series of garden-themed mystery novels by Audrey Stallsmith.
        Audrey is a great fan of heirloom plants, too, and at her website thymewilltell.com you’ll find, along with excerpts and reviews of her novels, a score of articles about heirlooms ranging from fritillaries to maize. Be sure to scroll down the text of her homepage and click on both the “heirloom plants” and the “historical plants” links. Happy reading! (Sept. 2006)

Link of the Month: Historic Garden Photos

        Now you can view hundreds of great old photos of American yards and gardens at memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/mhsdhtml/aladhome.html. They’re part of a collection of nearly 3000 historic lantern slides from 1850-1920 recently digitized for the Library of Congress’s “American Memories” project. There are views of cities, buildings, parks, estates, and gardens, and you can easily search the collection by terms such as arbors, carpet beds, and even “plants-bulbs.”
        I especially liked an image that I happened upon of an urban working family’s backyard from 1902 with nothing but a fence, clothes lines, a wooden walk, and a little kid standing on the flat bare dirt. But there are plenty of lavish gardens pictured, too, and simply browsing through the collection is both educational and inspiring. (March 2006)

Link of the Month: Your Hardiness Zone Has Changed

        Have your winters seemed warmer lately? They probably are! An updated version of the USDA Hardiness Zones Map shows dramatic changes. Most gardeners will find they’re now in a warmer zone than on the old map, which hadn’t been updated since 1990. Developed by the National Arbor Day Foundation, the new map is based on 1990-2004 data from the same 5000 National Climatic Data Center stations used for the old map. You can see the changes and check out your new zone at http://www.arborday.org/media/zones.cfm. Scroll down for links to a full press release as well as a comparison map that morphs from old to new, showing the northward march of warmer temperatures.
        Global warming is nothing to celebrate, but what gardener hasn’t longed to grow some plants in his or her garden that weren’t quite hardy there? Now, perhaps, you can. (Jan. 2006)

Link of the Month: Antique Hyacinth Vases

        American gardeners of the 1800s loved forcing hyacinths in special vases for winter bloom. The practice dates back to the mid-1700s when Madame Pompadour, influential mistress of Louis XV, had hundreds of hyacinths forced in vases at Versailles. Today, antique hyacinth glasses are collected worldwide. For a glimpse of the immense collection of Dutch enthusiast Wim Granneman, visit kennemerend.nl/bollenglazen. Among other treats, Wim’s homespun site offers a link to Querbeet, a German garden shop offering many forcing vases, including a reproduction from 1888, and the world’s only book about them, Hyazinthen Glaser.

Link of the Month: ‘Beauty of Bath’ – A Tulip Mystery Story

        With primrose petals flamed purple, the ‘Beauty of Bath’ tulip is stunning. But how did it get its name? One of our favorite garden writers, Betsy Ginsburg, put on her detective cap and journeyed back to Edwardian England to investigate. Her quest, which involves antique apples and a hit musical, makes for an evocative story that I bet you’ll love.
        But don’t stop there. Betsy’s site, GardenersApprentice.com, is full of other great garden articles, tips, book reviews, and more. I especially liked her piece titled “Rose of Sharon: Still Fashionable After All These Years,” but like a good book, Betsy’s whole site is hard to quit reading. Enjoy! (Nov. 2005)

Link of the Month: An 18th-Century Flower Album

        One of the greatest florilegiums of the 1700s, the Hortus Nitidissimus, is also one of the rarest. Featuring hand-colored prints of hundreds of garden flowers, it was published in parts over the course of 36 years and few complete copies survive. But now through the wonders of modern technology a virtually perfect copy is on reserve for you at rbgkew.org.uk/data/trew/home.do. In it you’ll find dozens of hyacinths (including some astonishing doubles) and tulips (with several parrots much like our Hortus Bulborum rarities) along with lilies, daffodils, ranunculus, and many other bulbs. Enjoy a glimpse of what spring looked like 250 years ago! (Sept. 2005)

Link of the Month: Ukraine Protects Valley of the Narcissus

        Since the beginning of time, millions of wild pheasant’s-eye narcissus (much like our N. poeticus recurvus and ‘Ornatus’) have been blooming every spring in a valley in Ukraine. As farming and other development encroached on this vast paradise, more and more of these richly fragrant flowers were plowed under or paved over. Eventually local conservationists mounted a “Save the Narcissus” campaign and now 643 acres are protected as part of a national park. We hear it’s an awesome sight in bloom, but if you go, be careful: the accumulated fragrance can be literally dizzying. For photos and more, visit http://www.wumag.kiev.ua/index2.php?param=pgs20051/104. (July 2005)

Get Ken Druse’s Brand-New Newsletter

        Our friend Ken Druse, author of The Natural Garden, The Passion for Gardening, and other classics, is one of America’s most inspiring garden writers and photographers. Now he’s launching an email newsletter, and you can be one of the first to subscribe! Here’s the skinny, direct from Ken:
        “By popular demand (really) I am going to have a free, semi-regular e-newsletter where I can share timely thoughts: trends, cool tools, wonderful plants, interesting people, complaints, the latest dirt nature has dished out to me here in the island garden, etc. I hope you will sign up, and pass this note along to friends who you think would be interested, as well.” To subscribe, click here. (June 2005)

Link of the Month: London Pride and Sarah Orne Jewett

        The garden in Maine once tended by Victorian author Sarah Orne Jewett (The Country of the Pointed Firs, etc.) lives on today under the good care of museum gardener Nancy Mayer Wetzel. In 1883, Jewett wrote a short story about a pre-dawn ramble through her garden, and in it she mentions a flower she calls London pride. Wetzel wanted to replant this flower in Jewett’s garden, but Jewett’s description of it didn’t fit what’s most commonly known as London pride today, Saxifraga umbrosa. So Wetzel had to do some heirloom-flower sleuthing. To read Jewett’s story and, even better, the results of Wetzel’s investigation, go to public.coe.edu/~theller/soj/mod/housebkr.htm and scroll all the way down the page. (June 2005)

Link of the Month: Wild Tulips

        Here’s a fascinating, home-made site devoted to the wild ancestors of our garden tulips, many of which are great garden plants in their own right: tulipessauvages.org/english_version/index.htm. Though it’s a French-language site and its English translations are sometimes a bit clunky, that only adds to its considerable charm. (March 2005)

Link of the Month: History of Gardening Timeline

        Anyone with an interest in gardening and the past could easily spend hours wandering through this huge, multi-faceted website. Compiled by retired librarian Michael Garofalo of California, it’s a simple, rambling site full of all sorts of interesting facts, publications, links, and even gardening quotations. Its subtitle offers a glimpse of its riches: “Noteworthy Gardens, Events, Persons, Publications, and Facts in the History of Gardening with References and Web Links Organized by Time Periods and Some Information about Agriculture, Farming, Culinary Arts, Botany, Horticulture, Technology, Arts and Crafts.” To start wandering, go to gardendigest.com/timegl.htm. (Jan. 2005)

Link of the Month: Preserving Antique Lawn Mowers

        When the first lawn mowers arrived in America in the mid-1800s, garden writers extolled their charms. Really! For a glimpse of some of these Victorian relics and other charmers from the early 20th century, visit the fascinating Reel Lawn Mower History and Preservation Project at users.crocker.com/~jricci/. And be sure to click on the Document link to see an idyllic Victorian lawn scene with a pattern-bed of cannas. (Dec. 2004)

Link of the Month: Nationwide Guide to Expert Local Advice

        A great local resource for gardeners is your Cooperative Extension Office. Every county has one; there’s even one in Manhattan! Most have a help line staffed by Master Gardeners who can identify plants and pests for you and answer many, many gardening questions. For the phone number of your county’s, go to the new csrees.usda.gov/Extension/index.html and click on your state. (Dec. 2004)

For articles on other topics, see our main Newsletter Archives page.