Thanks for Sticking with Us

        Friends are great to have when times are good, but we appreciate and count on them even more when the going gets tough. So this Thanksgiving, maybe more than ever before, we wanted to let you know how grateful we are for your support.
        Our customers bought more bulbs from us this fall than ever before, despite the daunting economic turmoil. And many of you included cheery, encouraging notes with your orders. I can't begin to tell you how much that means to all of us here.
        Heirloom bulbs are never going to get a billion-dollar bailout, and you probably won't either. But by supporting one another, working hard, and using our good old American ingenuity, I believe we can all find our way to brighter days again.
        When I sit down at the table with my family and friends this Thanksgiving, you can be sure I'll be thinking of you.

Give the Green Gift of Spring this Holiday Season!

        What could be more welcome in winter than the promise of spring?
        Holiday Samplers: New! Save time and money with one of these special samplers. All include our OHG tote-bag, a terrific book, and a gift certificate or Intro Sampler.
        Gift Certificates: We'll hand-write your personal gift message in our beautiful, bulb-flowered card and include our fabulous, dream-inspiring catalog.
        OHG Tote-Bags: In fern green or Santa red, these cool, earth-friendly bags need no wrapping. Add a bit of tissue paper and a couple of small gifts, and you're done!
        Bulb Samplers for Spring Planting: Dahlias for bouquets, fragrant tuberoses, wild glads, easy cannas, and more, all for delivery in April.
        Hortus Notecards: These 5 gorgeous cards (and, while supplies last, two free 80th jubilee bookmarks) help support the world's most important sanctuary of historic bulbs.
        OHG T-shirts: Cool and comfy, silk-screened with antique bulbs.
        Great Books: Starting at $10, many of them hard to find elsewhere.
        Gift delivery DEADLINE: We'll be closed Dec. 22 through Jan. 4, so if you need your order delivered this year, please make sure it reaches us by Sunday, Dec. 21.

Book of the Month: Ken Druse's Planthropology

        If you haven't already added this brand-new book to your holiday wish list, do! The cover features a dazzling close-up photo of a red-and-white poppy framed by deep green, and you'll find many other "oh wow" images throughout the book. In fact the first time I sat down with it I simply turned the pages savoring the photographs. If nothing else, Planthropology should cement Ken Druse's reputation as one of the most gifted garden photographers of our time.
        But it's a not-to-be-missed read as well. "Planthropology" is Ken's inventive term for "the study of plants and their particular histories," yet this is no conventional history book. Subtitled The Myths, Mysteries, and Miracles of my Garden Favorites, it's more like a walk in the garden with your favorite uncle, a brilliant, passionate, talkative guy who paints, collects rare flowers, has advanced degrees in botany, literature, and world history, and still manages to be down-to-earth. Follow Ken's lead and you'll be entertained, charmed, and enlightened -- and I think you'll never look at your own garden in quite the same way again.

If Javelinas Roam Your Garden, Plant Iris!

        Though we didn't include bearded iris on our recent list of animal-resistant bulbs, our good customer Louise Coulter of Payson, Arizona, emailed us to vouch for them:
        "In my area which is at 5,000 feet in Arizona's northern section there is an animal called javelina or wild pig. With cloven hoofs, tusks, and large foraging families, it devastates unprotected bulbs in gardens -- except for iris. Seems they can't eat iris. So at thousands of homes here, where the yards are unfenced, iris naturalize and are ubiquitous. Seems the local nurseries obtained a limited color palette of them each year, so one can almost tell how old the bulbs are by their color. For years one could only get shades of variegated purple and a lovely pale salmon."

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.

Dahlias in Florida (and Another Sniff of Abyssinian Glads)

        Our friend Jonathan Lubar reports "great luck" growing our old dahlias in his "trial bulb garden" at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens in zone-8 Gainesville, Florida. Those doing especially well this year were 'Yellow Gem', 'Willo Violet', and 'Thomas Edison'.
        "I followed some recommendations from your Dahlias for the South page," he writes, "heavy mulch, etc. They limped through the hot summer but took off in fall and are still blooming [Nov. 1]. 'Tom Edison' is an impressive monster!"
        As for Abyssinian glads, Jonathan adds this to our ongoing discussion: "I think they smell like four o'clocks (somewhat citrus flower-scented)."

Price Freeze! Order Now for NEXT Fall at This Year's Prices

        Though bulbs for this fall are completely SOLD OUT, you can order NOW for planting NEXT FALL and we won't charge you a nickel over this fall's prices.
        Think of it as our little holiday gift for you. But don't delay. We'll honor our current fall prices ONLY until we post our new prices sometime in the new year. Click here to start saving money!

We're Hiring!

        If you live in or near Ann Arbor and you're an avid flower gardener, highly organized, and like to work hard, you just might be the new VP for Bulbs we're looking for! Click here to learn more.

Did You Miss Our Last Newsletter? Read It Online!

October's articles included praise from Southern Living's Grumpy Gardener, 'Black Beauty' lilies in Florida, a great new book on early American flowers, "thug quail," and more. You can read all of our back-issues -- by date or by topic -- at oldhousegardens.com/NewsletterArchives.asp .

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