For more good reading, see our Books We Recommend.
Bolding marks articles that are entirely about Old House Gardens or by Scott Kunst.
Garden Gate, “The New Plants We Can’t Resist for 2017,” by Sherri Ribbey, Feb. 2017. Old can be new, as our friends at Garden Gate understand, which is why they’ve named our vintage 1955 ‘Fashion Monger’ dahlia one of the best new plants for 2017. Simple but striking, it’s “a favorite of bees and makes a great cut flower, too.”
Pull Up a Chair, “Bulb Therapy,” by Barbara Mahany, Sept. 30, 2016. After 30 years at the Chicago Tribune, our good customer Barbara Mahany launched her personal and poetic blog. In “Bulb Therapy” she talks of “the healing balms of the trowel” and bulbs that whisper “here’s what you get when you hold onto hope.” She also has some very kind words about us, calling our heirlooms “the breathtakingest bulbs on the planet.”
Cultivating Place, “Heirloom Bulbs with Scott Kunst of Old House Gardens,” by Jennifer Jewell, Sept. 22, 2016. Cultivating Place is the public radio program of our long-time customer Jennifer Jewell of northern California. In this lively half-hour interview we had a great time talking about my love of dinosaurs, our first gardens, why I launched OHG, great bulbs saved and lost, and more.
The Gardener’s Apprentice, “Saint Heirloom,” by Betsy Ginsburg, Sept. 6, 2016. I’ve been getting a lot of “happy retirement” notes and emails (thank you!), but nothing quite compares with this post by our good friend Betsy Ginsburg. Along with her take on the OHG story, Betsy talks about how our heirlooms have given her “inspiration and solace” in the face of personal tragedy by reminding her of “eternal things – beauty, love, endurance, and the endless cycle of the seasons.”
Gardenista, “Gladiolus: Rethinking a Funeral Flower,” by Michelle Slatalla, June 21, 2016. Blogger Michelle Slatalla had always avoided glads, but when she tried a few of our graceful, small-flowered heirlooms, she saw them in a whole new light. Glads are “breathtaking,” she writes, and our “heirloom varieties mingle well with other perennials” in her California garden – as you’ll see in her inspiring photos.
The Wall Street Journal, “Petals with Provenance,” by Bart Ziegler, Feb. 20-21, 2016. This excellent article quotes Scott and our good customer Alicia Guy along with experts from Monticello, Old Sturbridge Village, and Longwood Gardens. Like heirloom vegetables, Ziegler writes, heirloom flowers have a “devoted following.” He plugs the “bragging rights” of three of ours: “You can grow the same tulips planted in the White House Rose Garden ... in 1962; the variety of tuberoses Louis XIV enjoyed at Versailles; or the diminutive Silver Bells daffodils that author Eudora Welty tended in her Mississippi yard.” He adds that “raising heirloom plants yields more than beauty: you ensure their survival,” and he ends by quoting Scott: “The only way to save them is to grow them.”
Garden Gate, “Top Picks: These 9 Plants Add a Touch of Tropical Flair,” by Shayna Courtney, July-Aug. 2015. This list of top picks includes three of our favorite spring-planted heirlooms. “Hummingbirds love the miniature blooms of ‘Atom’ gladiolus,” Shayna writes. Rain lilies, which we grow in pots here in the north, make “a good spreading groundcover” in warmer zones. And the fragrance of ‘Mexican Single’ tuberose “intensifies in the evening,” so she recommends siting it where you can enjoy that and “the moths that visit its radiant blooms.”
Sissinghurst Garden: Notes from the Gardeners, “My Top 5 . . . Tulips,” by Helen Champion, May 7, 2015. In this terrific blog post, Helen ranks pink ‘Clara Butt’ #1. It was once the world’s most popular tulip, “but fashions move on,” she writes, and “it is likely that the tulip would have been lost forever” when the last US farmer quit growing it “were it not for the efforts of Scott Kunst from Old House Gardens. He bought the remaining stock and sent 100 bulbs to Holland to be propagated. Now the future of this bulb is secure.” Helen’s #3 tulip is ‘Prinses Irene’ which has “historically been grown in the copper pot in the Cottage Garden,” and she gives dusky ‘Greuze’ an appreciative nod, too.
Colonial Williamsburg, “Tulips,” spring 2015. Since 2009 we’ve proudly supplied all of the bulbs planted at Colonial Williamsburg, including some 20,000 tulips every fall. This issue of the Journal of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation features those tulips on the cover and in four pages of photos inside. To enjoy them, start at the cover (which may load slowly) and then enter 28 in the page-number box at the bottom of the screen.
Detroit Home, “Color Tips: Crocus,” by Megan Swoyer, March 2015. This brief article in metro-Detroit’s upscale home magazine notes our “choice selection of heirloom crocus” and offers Scott’s expert tips for growing them.
Garden Gate, “Out-of-the-Ordinary Daylilies,” by Stephanie Petersen, Nov. 2014. In this “Editor’s Picks” article, Stephanie showcases eleven daylilies that reflect the vast diversity of the genus, and two of them are ours! She praises ‘Challenger’ for providing “lots of flowers” on extra-tall stalks: “With scapes up to 6 feet tall, the brick-red spider flowers are held high and perfect in the middle or back of the border.” ‘Corky’, on the other hand, “looks more like a wildflower” with its “slender grass-like foliage” and “massive flush” of small yellow flowers that open in “delightful contrast” to its “burgundy-bronze” buds.
The Associated Press, “Stop and Smell the Tulips — Some Varieties, Anyway,” by Dean Fosdick, Nov. 2014. In his weekly column published in scores of newspapers around the country, Dean spreads the word about fragrant tulips, offering tips for enjoying them in the garden and indoors as well as Scott’s list of favorites.
Garden Design, “18 Stunning and Offbeat Bulbs,” by Jenny Andrews, fall 2014. Jenny asked me to recommend three bulbs for this article, but when it arrived I was happy to see she’d included SIX of our heirlooms: Byzantine gladiolus (which she says “has kept its graceful, wild look, in contrast to its frou-frou cousins”), Tulipa clusiana (a “perennial” that “requires fewer chilling hours to bloom”), red spider lily, Formosa lily, ‘Atom’ (“a small glad with giant impact”), and ‘Boone’ (“a treasured plant I’ve carried with me as I’ve moved”).
AWaytoGarden.com, “Extending Spring Bloom from Bulbs,” by Margaret Roach, August 2014. “Best Overall” garden blogger Margaret talked with me about having bulbs in bloom from snow to iris season. We started with small, extra-early, animal-resistant beauties including Turkish glory-of-the-snow (her favorite), and then I did my best to talk her into hyacinths (today’s un-coolest bulb) before we wrapped up with fragrant daffodils, six weeks of tulips, and the underappreciated snowflake.
Country Gardens, “Saving Heirloom Bulbs,” by Anne Raver, Summer 2014. This wonderful article tells the story of how we’ve turned neglected spaces in our old neighborhood into a patchwork farm for heirloom bulbs. There’s a full-page shot of a big, beautiful bouquet of our iris, daylilies, and more, as well as photos of us sitting on our old-house porch and working in the micro-farms. Don’t miss the editor’s letter at the front of the magazine, too, where our old friend James Baggett calls us part of a “new generation of sustainable farmers.”
Martha Stewart Living, “From the Ground Up,” by Melissa Ozawa, May 2014. Look closely and you’ll see several of our dahlias here in the beautiful vegetable garden and bouquets of our good customer and accalimed potter, Frances Palmer.
AWaytoGarden.com, “Heirloom Dahlias with Scott Kunst,” by Margaret Roach, Feb. 24, 2014. Margaret’s award-winning blog is not only enormously popular, it’s a personal favorite of mine, so I was thrilled when she asked me to talk with her about heirloom dahlias. After introducing me as “Mr. Heirloom Bulb himself” (which I’m pretty sure she meant as a compliment), we chatted about my “anthropological passion” for heirlooms, why I like growing dahlias, and some of her favorite heirlooms such as ‘Bishop of Llandaff’ and “Gracchus’.
Dallas Morning News, “Nighttime Reading that will Foster Dreams of the Garden,” by Mariana Greene, Jan. 29, 2014. Mariana includes us on her list of five catalogs “whose offerings make me weak with desire.” Although we’ve never met, she says “I consider Scott an old friend. His newsletters and catalog entries are delightfully conversational.” She praises our “mouth-watering” dahlias and iris, and says she’s planted “numerous pint-size gladioli from [OHG’s] American-grown inventory, with great success. . . . Their colors and markings are remarkable.”
Chicago Tribune, “Snowdrops Provide First Delicate Signs of Spring,” Oct. 1, 2013, by Nina Koziol. Nina talks with Scott and collector David Culp (The Layered Garden) about these extra-early, no-care, eagerly multiplying little beauties.
The Greenville News, “Fashion a Colorful Spring Season with Fall-Planted Bulbs,” Sept. 20, 2013, by Marian St. Clair. “Shade gardeners should select bulbs that flower early, so foliage has time to restore energy to the bulb before trees produce a new crop of leaves,” Marian writes. Among those she’s planting in her zone-8, South Carolina garden this fall, she’s “especially excited” about some of ours.
Fine Gardening, “You’ll Be Glad You Bought This Hardy Heirloom Gladiolus,” by Scott Kunst, August 2013. When Fine Gardening invited Scott to write about one of his favorite bulbs for their “Plant Picks” column, his first choice was our true, zone-6 hardy Byzantine gladiolus which he describes as “graceful, dazzling, . . . and unlike any mainsteam glad.”
This Old House, “Dahlias: Late Summer’s Drama Queens,” by Debra Prinzing, August 2013. “With their fanciful forms and fabulous hues, dahlias are a sure-fire hit,” Debra writes. She quotes Scott calling dahlias “the ‘it’ flower” of the 1800s, and includes photos of ‘Bishop of Llandaff’, ‘Clair de Lune’, and ‘Tsuki Yori no Shisha’. You can also read the original, longer version of her article at her blog.
WSJ: The Wall Street Journal Magazine, “Back in Style: Power Flowers,” by Adrienne Gaffney, April 2013. “Heritage flowers like hyacinths and daylilies have become status symbols for discerning gardeners,” Gaffney writes in this wonderful little article. She quotes superstar garden designer Madison Cox praising “the wide range of forms, shapes, colors, . . . scent and uniqueness of heirloom bulbs,” and ends with this: “For Scott Kunst, who runs Old House Gardens — an A-list destination for heirloom selections . . . — the appeal is indicative of a larger phenomenon: ‘It’s part of a worldview that says, What we have isn’t limitless.’”
The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon, “Garden Catalogs Begin Annual Journey to Your Mailbox,” by Kym Pokorny, Jan. 21, 2013. In this review of her favorite garden catalogs, Kym praises our “great quality” and says “owner Scott Kunst has a calling to keep heirloom bulbs in circulation. Thank goodness.”
SouthernLiving.com, “Four Easy Bulb Planters to Make Now,” by Steve Bender, Nov. 8, 2012. We’re one of “three great mail-order sources screened and approved by Grumpy” — aka Southern Living’s long-time garden editor — in this encouraging how-to article about planting bulbs in containers.
Gardenista.com, “5 Quick Fixes: The Rarified Daffodil,” by Michelle Slatalla, Sept. 7, 2012. At this “Sourcebook for Considered Living,” Michelle blogs enthusiastically about the diverse beauty of our “rare, coveted daffodils” and calls Scott “blessedly fanatical” — which he’s taking as a compliment.
GardenersApprentice.com, “A Peony’s Tale,” by Betsy Ginsburg, Sept. 3, 2012. “When I walk around my garden I hear voices,” Betsy writes, “retelling the stories of each plant that I pass.” Here she tells the fascinating story of ‘Frances Willard’ peony, including the “redoubtable woman” it’s named for, the Brands of Minnesota who bred it, and ‘Myrtle Gentry’ who started as their secretary and ended up their partner.
Leaf, “Artful Forcing”, by Elizabeth Licata, fall 2012. Our good customer and GardenRant blogger Elizabeth Licata introduced me to this great online garden magazine. In its fall 2012 issue you’ll find Elizabeth’s inspiring, you-can-do-it article on forcing along with a profile of John Shipton, the nurseryman in Wales who supplies us with true English bluebells.
ClayandLimestone.com, “It’s Late Summer and a Gardener’s Thoughts Turn to Fall-Planted Bulbs,” by Gail Eichelberger, Aug. 31, 2012. A wildflower enthusiast and award-winning blogger, Gail gives us a shout-out in this post about the daffodils and red spider lilies she found growing at her Tennessee place when she moved there 26 years ago — and that continue to delight her today.
GardenersApprentice.com, “Hyacinth Discovery,” by Betsy Ginsburg, Aug. 29, 2012. “Every gardener has ‘holy grails’,” Betsy writes, “plants they have waited years to acquire.” She’s finally getting one of hers from us this fall — an extraordinary double yellow hyacinth which may well be the long-lost, 200-year-old ‘Ophir’ — and she tells its story here.
The Martha Stewart Show, “Spring Bulb Planting,” March 20, 2012. Scott has a great time showing Martha and her studio audience how to plant heirloom dahlias, gladiolus, and tuberoses. Martha praises our catalog, telling her viewers “you’re going to want every single bulb on every single page,” and stumps Scott by asking, “Is this tuber a boy or a girl?” Watch it here.
Traditional Home blog, “Old House Gardens: Heirloom Fall Bulbs, Perfect for Traditional Gardens,” by Rebecca Christian, Sept. 22, 2011. Traditional Home’s garden editor tells our story with enthusiasm, insight, and a sense of humor, from Scott “at seven with buck teeth and a buzz cut proudly brandishing a pair of radishes” to her favorite hyacinth, ‘King of the Blues’, which she contrasts with “schlubby modern hyacinths” and asks, “Do you think there might be something in the water causing an obesity epidemic in modern plants as well as modern people?”
Old-House Journal, “Outside the Old House” articles by Scott Kunst. Thanks to Google Books, all of Scott’s articles for the country’s leading historic-house magazine are now available online. Bulbs were an early and frequent topic. “Victorian Tulips” in 1988 was followed by “Daffodils: The Glory of the Post-Victorian Garden” and then “Antique Hyacinths” (with a list of 12 hyacinths then available in mainstream catalogs, 6 of which are now commercially extinct), “Antique Iris” (almost 20 years before we added iris to our catalog), “Antique Peonies,” and, in 2008, “Savoring Dahlias.” Scott’s non-bulb articles included carpet bedding, Victorian vegetable gardening, early 20th-century landscapes (starting on page 128), historic paving (p. 18), herb gardens (p. 18), cast iron (p. 18), hanging baskets (p.20), “How Not to Remuddle Your Yard” (p. 22), books and groups (p. 26), antique apples (p. 16), and garden seating (p. 20).
Mobile Press-Register, “Buy Bulbs Now,” by Bill Finch, Aug. 19, 2011. “Let’s get this spring bulb thing straight,” Mobile’s favorite gardener writes. “You can have an abundance of spring bulbs blooming in your garden from Feb. 1 through April 10 if you: 1. Buy bulbs adapted to Gulf Coast winters . . .” — and for those he sends his readers to just one source, saying, “I swear by Old House Gardens.”
The Associated Press, “Alums Can Display School Spirit with Flower Colors,” by Dean Fosdick, April 26, 2011. Published in scores of newspapers around the country, Dean’s column expands on an article in our email newsletter about the witty reply we got from our good customer Deb Barber of Madison, Wisconsin, when we asked her why she was ordering bulbs in the maize-and-blue colors of our home-town team, the mighty Michigan Wolverines.
Garden Gate, “Editor’s Choice: Tommies,” by Deb Gruca, April 2011. With a full-page photo of our Crocus tommasinianus in editor Jim Child’s garden and a planting plan for an “Early Spring Surprise Path-side Combo,” this article celebrates the small, charming, animal-resistant crocus familiarly known as tommies.
Gardening How-To, “Did You Know?” March-April 2011. The How-To editors spotlight our true, fragrant lemon lily, explaining that for centuries it was widely grown but today it’s one of the rarest daylilies.
SouthernLiving.com, “10 Best Plants for Fall,” by Steve Bender. “Order from oldhousegardens.com” — that’s what Southern Living’s senior garden writer recommends for all three bulbs on this Top 10 list adapted from the Sept. 2010 issue. Spanish bluebell is “the best spring bulb no one seems to know about,” and blue ‘Excelsior’ is Steve’s favorite form. Red spider lily and surprise lily also make his list because they’re “easy to grow, spread into drifts, and last for generations.”
Garden Gate, “Top Picks: New Plants 2010,” by Sherri Ribbey, April 2010. In its annual “best of the new plants article,” Garden Gate names our ‘Lucky Star’ gladiolus its “Top New Bulb.” What makes it a top pick for 2010? Unlike virtually every other glad, it’s fragrant!
Country Gardens, “Design Notebook: Discovering Spring Heirlooms,” by Megan McConnell Hughes, early spring 2010. Among the perennials in front of her 1890s Iowa farmhouse, Megan planted hundreds of our daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths. Here she shares her planting plan and glimpses of the results.
The Grumpy Gardener at SouthernLiving.com, “Save Our Bulbs! Save Our Bulbs!” by Steve Bender, Feb. 24, 2010. “I love this company,” says Southern Living’s very funny garden editor. Steve praises us for offering bulbs “in danger of being lost forever in the tsunami of mass-marketed modern varieties,” for getting 85% of our spring-planted bulbs from American farmers, and because, even though we’re headquartered in “the frozen tundra of Michigan,” we have great bulbs and guidance for “those lucky souls who live in warmer climes.”
Fine Gardening, “The Mystery of the Red Dahlia,” by Steve Aitken, Dec., 2009. FG’s editor tells the tale of our ongoing attempts to identify and unravel the puzzling history of an exceptional pass-along dahlia that’s come to us now from several different sources.
Garden Gate, “10 Best Mail-Order Web Sites,” by Sherri Ribbey, Nov.-Dec. 2009. The article’s title says it all, and we’re thrilled to be named one of Garden Gate’s Top Ten. Making it an even bigger honor, Garden Gate is one of the country’s most popular gardening magazines with a circulation of over 400,000. Woo-hoo!
Mother Earth News, “Edible Dahlias,” by William Woys Weaver, Aug.-Sept. 2009. As “the indigenous peoples of mountainous southern Mexico did long ago,” our good customer and culinary historian Will has been taste-testing dahlias. Here he gives a full report, complete with a recipe for Dahlia Salad. “Heirlooms taste best,” he says, and notes in particular ‘Kaiser Wilhelm’ and our other Victorian varieties. There’s a great photo of our ‘Deuil du Roi Albert’ in Will’s garden, too.
The Baltimore Sun, “Despite the Heat, It’s Time to Think about Crocuses,” by Susan Reimer, Aug. 13, 2009. Susan gives this inexpensive, fits-in-anywhere bulb some well-deserved attention and then continues at her blog with a photo of Scott’s favorite crocus, ‘Pictus’, and a debate on planting crocus in the lawn.
Garden Ideas and Outdoor Living, “Making a Splash with Dahlias,” by Deb Wiley, summer 2009. This snappy but thorough introduction to growing dahlias includes four pages of luscious photos. Seven of them picture our heirlooms, including a dramatic, full-page close-up of radiant ‘Andries’ Orange As’.
The Associated Press, “Garden Cemeteries Mix History and Horticulture,” by Dean Fosdick, June 2009. America’s historic cemeteries are often remarkably lovely landscapes, rich in historic plants. In his weekly column, Dean turns to our own Scott Kunst for an introduction to these often neglected landscapes and then spotlights some exciting efforts to bring new life to them today.
MartaMcDowell.blogspot.com, “A Lunatic on Bulbs,” Nov. 15, 2008. Borrowing her title from Emily Dickinson (Marta is the author of the wonderful Emily Dickinson’s Gardens), Marta explains why she ordered our Intro to Heirlooms sampler late this fall even though she’d already planted hundreds of other bulbs.
GardenRant.com, “Why It’s ‘Old House’ Gardens,” by Elizabeth Licata, Nov. 12, 2008. One of the most popular garden blogs, Garden Rant is the collective work of four terrific writers who are “convinced that gardening MATTERS.” Elizabeth tells our story here with characteristic spontaneity and humor, and at the end of it her readers have added some very nice comments.
SouthernLiving.com, “Plant the Best Spring Bulbs,” by Steve Bender, Oct. 23, 2008. In his “Grumpy Gardener” blog, Southern Living’s long-time garden editor (and co-author of the classic Passalong Plants) calls us “an outstanding mail-order nursery specializing in easy-to-grow heirloom bulbs you can’t get almost anywhere else” — and that’s just a start.
The Christian Science Monitor, “Double the Hyacinth Pleasure and Beauty,” by Elizabeth Ginsburg, Oct. 23, 2008. Betsy shines the spotlight on double hyacinths (including ‘Chestnut Flower’) and the growing “hyacinth renaissance.” Read about multi-colored doubles, a Lithuanian botanist who saved rare varieties from extinction, and our good friend Alan Shipp.
The Dallas Morning News, “Rare Hyacinths Thrive in Former Eastern Europe,” by Mariana Greene, Sept. 19, 2008. Mariana “sniffs a hyacinth revival in the offing,” plugs our web-only rarities (and newsletter), and chats with Alan Shipp about “black hyacinths and Lithuanian treasures.”
The New York Times, “Striking Lilies, Ready for Revival,” by Anne Raver, Aug. 14, 2008. In this column about the lilies she grows and loves, Anne quotes extensively from our owner Scott Kunst. “He sold me my first ‘Black Beauty’ bulbs years ago,” she writes, “and they have bloomed . . . without fail ever since, in ever-widening clumps.” She also praises our ‘White Henryi’, ‘Excelsior’, ‘Citronella’, ‘Rubrum’, L. speciosum ‘Album’, L. superbum, ‘Mrs. Backhouse’, and martagons.
The Capital Times (Madison, WI), “Unique Tulip Bulbs Light Up Spring Garden,” by Linda Brazill, Aug. 4, 2008. Although she’d never planted tulips before, Linda finally “took the plunge” and tried a few dozen of ours. The results were “glorious,” she writes, “so fragrant and so stunningly beautiful.” She liked peony-like ‘Schoonoord’ best of all, calling it “a flower that I never want to be without now.”
Tulipsinthewoods.com, “Spring Bulbs Shopping 2: Old House Gardens,” by Pomona Belvedere, Aug. 3, 2008. “OHG bulbs are the top of the top of the bulb world,” this bulb-loving, northern California blogger writes, and “for those who enjoy diversity, shopping at OHG is a way to support people who preserve it.” Don’t miss her blog about ‘Hyperion’ daylily, too. Then take a look at her “Heirloom Plants and Bulbs“ categories, and you may find yourself reading on and on!
MartaMcDowell.blogspot.com, “Oh, Henry!” by Marta McDowell, July 20, 2008. Always fun to read, Marta blogs about “digging in the dirt, growing flowers and vegetables, garden history, horticulture and nature.” In addition to this charming piece about our ‘Henry’s lily’, see her blog about poet’s narcissus, too — for which, she says, we are a dandy source.
Old-House Journal, “Savoring Dahlias,” by Scott Kunst, June 2008. Scott spreads the good word about heirloom dahlias in the original old-house magazine. His article includes a list of eight favorites you can plant this spring to enjoy 200 years of dahlia history in your own back yard.
HeirloomGardener.com, “What I’ve Learned About Growing Tulips in New Jersey: Protecting from Squirrels and Deer, Planting in Clay Soil, and Creating Colorful Combination,” May 9, 2008. With inspiring photos, the Heirloom Gardener offers some hard-won wisdom on growing tulips in less than ideal conditions and plugs our heirloom tulips and Grandma’s Jewel Box sampler.
Pittsburg Post Gazette, “Bloomin’ Business: Mail-Order Nursery Owner Has Watched Demand Blossom for Heirloom Bulbs,” by Susan Banks, April 5, 2008. Between lectures in Pittsburg, Scott zipped downtown to the Post-Gazette newsroom to chat with garden editor (and OHG customer) Susan Banks. You can eavesdrop and get all the juicy details about us in this excellent article.
Flower Gardens, “Heirloom Bulbs, Great for Beginners,” by Erica Browne Grivas, spring 2008. “Against all odds in this mass-market age,” Erica marvels, “we can still grow a daffodil that Shakespeare sniffed or a tulip that Thomas Jefferson grew.” Then she goes on to tell our story here with so much enthusiasm and flair that we wanted to hug her.
HeirloomGardener.com, “Old House Gardens Nursery & Heirloom Dahlias,” Jan. 16, 2008. Anyone with an interest in heirloom flowers will enjoy the beautifully illustrated blog of New Jersey’s anonymous Heirloom Gardener. Despite deer, shade, clay soil, and five kids, she grows beautiful roses, perennials, and lots of our bulbs — and finds time to blog about it.
Veranda, “Heirloom Dahlias,” by Katherine Whiteside, Oct. 2007. In the 20th anniversary issue of this luxury lifestyle magazine, Katherine writes of the history and joys of dahlias, with eight photos from our trial garden.
American Horticulturist, “Havens for Heirlooms,” by Steve Dryden, Sept.-Oct. 2007. We’re honored to be the lead example in this American Horticultural Society article about “a few special nurseries and seed companies [for whom] preserving the history and beauty of heirloom plants is a labor of love.”
Horticulture, “My Time-Capsule Bulb Garden,” by Marty Ross, Sept., 2007. “My husband and I are the curators of a little bulb museum, on our very typical 60-by-120-foot lot in an older neighborhood in Kansas City,” Marty writes in this charming essay that’s sure to strike a chord with old-bulb lovers everywhere. “We live on McGee Street,” she continues, “and we call our museum the Hortus Bulborum McGeeinsis.” You can read it all at Horticulture’s website where it’s been re-titled “Building a Bulb Collection.”
The English Garden, “Plant Save,” by Christine Jamieson, Sept. 2007. Widely distributed in the US, this lovely British publication gives us a nice little plug, illustrated with our photo of ‘Insulinde’, and includes us every month in their list of recommended sources.
Mobile Press-Register, “Shifting with the Gulf Coast’s Seasons,” by Bill Finch, Aug. 17, 2007. Old House Gardens has “THE best selection of Gulf Coast-adapted bulbs,” according to Bill, Mobile’s favorite gardener. “Start with ‘Grand Primo’, ‘Campernelle’ (the Mardi Gras lily), ‘Carlton’, ‘St. Keverne’, and ‘Thalia’ for bloom . . . from the first week in February through the last weeks of March. Complement narcissus gold with Spanish bluebells, and for dry, well-drained soils, consider Scott’s Bulb of the Year, the candy-stripe tulip, Tulipa clusiana. Yes, it really does return and bloom every spring in Mobile.”
Horticulture, “Plant This: Dahlia ‘Kaiser Wilhelm’,” by Scott Kunst, May 2007. With a full-page, larger-than-life-size photo, Horticulture’s monthly “favorite plant” feature throws the spotlight on this incredible Victorian survivor.
Garden Gate, “Scott Kunst on Growing Spectacular Glads,” by Jim Childs, Jan.-Feb. 2007. To kick off every issue, Garden Gate features a well-known expert talking about a topic of special interest. This time, we’re honored to say, it’s our own Scott Kunst sharing his tips for growing glads in pots, perennial borders, and throughout your garden.
The Associated Press, “Rare Plants Make Great Stocking Stuffers,” by Dean Fosdick, Nov. 15, 2006. Dean explores the growing demand for rare and expensive plants. “Pleasure gardens are becoming treasure gardens,” he writes, and he quotes extensively from the leaders of two of the country’s favorite mail-order nurseries, Burpee and Old House Gardens!
Newsday, “Middle Ages: Saved by the Bulbs,” by Irene Virag, Oct. 1, 2006. Irene delves into our story with empathy and flair, starting with Scott’s childhood love of fossils and his grandmother’s garden. Tulipa acuminata “looks like a daddy longlegs,” she writes, and ‘Kaiser Wilhelm’, is “more than just a flower. It’s history.”
The Wall Street Journal, “Coming to Your Backyard: A Nearly Extinct Tree,” by Bart Ziegler, Sept. 20, 2006. Bart uses the Wollemi pine as a jumping off point to explore the “growing vogue for preserving both wild and heirloom plants in home gardens” — and uses us as one of his prime examples.
Christian Science Monitor, “The Indiana Jones of Heirloom Bulbs,” by April Austin, Sept. 13, 2006. The headline made us laugh, but April’s article about Scott and our bulbs in this highly regarded national newspaper is both thorough and terrific.
The Germinatrix at dominomag.com, “Heirloom Treasures,” by Ivette Soler, Aug. 21, 2006. Domino magazine’s blunt, funny garden-blogger Ivette Soler has some kind things to say about us. She starts off: “I’m in the throes of plant lust. I just received a copy of Old House Gardens’ catalog. I have to sneak it into the house so my husband doesn’t see it. I hide it in last month’s Vanity Fair. He thinks I’m reading about the difficulty of being Hilary Swank, but I’m planning on acquiring some serious heirloom bulbs.”.
Mobile Press-Register, “Countdown to Spring,” by Bill Finch, July 21, 2006. Mobile’s garden guru reports on the success he’s had with our “Gulf Coast All-Star narcissus” and both Freesia alba and the candystick tulip, Tulipa clusiana, which has “come bursting out of the ground three springs in a row, each year better than the last.”
Plants & Gardens News, “Glads for Glad Haters,” by Scott Kunst, spring 2006. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden invited Scott to write this piece about small-flowered glads for their “Plants with Pizzazz” column, and of course he said yes!
Garden Design, “Bulb Rebirth,” by Eliot Tozer, April 2006. For over 50 years, Eliot has been writing about gardening and gardeners, and we’re proud that he chose to write about us. In this snappy little article he tells our story and plugs the virtues of heirlooms.
Washington Post, “If It Ain’t Broke, You’re Missing Out,” by Adrian Higgins, April 20, 2006. “I am enjoying my own tulipomania this spring,” the Post’s garden columnist reports in this wonderfully long article about his adventures growing our true broken tulips. He calls them “beguiling, . . . stunning, . . . a floral cabaret.”
Multichannel Merchant, “Sprucing Up Old House Gardens,” by Lois Boyle and Kevin Kotowski, Nov. 2005. The bible of the catalog industry critiques one catalog a month, and this month that wasn’t L.L. Bean or Pottery Barn but us! The experts gave us lots of praise (“world class” keeps echoing through our heads) as well as lots of great advice.
TheGardenersApprentice.com, “Beauty of Bath,” by Betsy Ginsburg, Nov. 2005. Betsy puts on her detective cap and journeys back to Edwardian England to figure out how this glorious tulip got its name. It’s an entertaining, evocative story.
North Coast Journal, Humboldt County, California, “The Beauty of Diseased Tulips,” by Amy Stewart, May 26, 2005. In this breezy, entertaining piece, Amy (GardenRant blogger and author of Wicked Plants, etc.) educates gardeners about our “exquisite . . . decadent broken tulips”. (And she loves our email newsletter!)
Traditional Home, “Dahlia Delirium” by Ethne Clark, April 2005, pp. 108-113. With a full-page photo of ‘Juanita’ in our trial garden, this fine article includes a special sampler we put together just for TH readers.
The Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, MS, “Michigan Gardener Cultivates Beauty,” by Felder Rushing, Feb. 9, 2005. Felder Rushing is one of the funniest guys in horticulture, and passionate about getting people to have fun gardening. He visited us recently, picked our brains for his new edition of Passalong Plants, and then wrote this pensive column about our “fashion-dormant bulbs” that are “ready to spice contemporary gardens.”
The Avant Gardener, “Beautiful Antiques,” by Thomas Powell, October 2004. This terrific, 36-year-old newsletter of all things new and exciting in the garden world calls us “the premium purveyor of heirloom bulbs.”
Traditional Home, “Dutch Treat: Antique Tulips to Grow and Show,” by Ethne Clark, Oct. 2004. Garden editor Ethne gets enthusiastic about our old tulips and a special sampler we put together exclusively for TH readers.
Family Circle, “Plant Picks from the Pros: 15 Garden Showstoppers,” by Cynthia Van Hazinga, Sept. 7, 2004. One of five nursery-owners featured in this excellent article, Scott recommends the indestructible ‘Black Beauty’ lily, Byzantine glads, and Tulipa acuminata.
Green Scene, “Heirloom Dahlias,” by William Woys Weaver, August, 2004. In this cover article, our good customer and culinary historian William Woys Weaver writes about the historic dahlias in his garden and credits our “tireless enthusiasm” for what he calls a “healthy revival of interest” in them across the country.
“My Grab-Bag Garden,” by Sharon Lovejoy in A Blessing of Toads: A Gardener’s Guide to Living with Nature, Hearst Books, 2004. In this essay from the Sept. 2002 issue of Country Living Gardener, Sharon recounts the joys of her Intro to Heirlooms sampler [formerly known as our Garage Sale sampler].
Garden Shed, “Living History,” by Kate Carter Frederick, winter 2003. This great article about the Hortus Bulborum includes a sidebar titled “America’s History Keeper” that’s all about us! Kate writes, “The Hortus Bulborum has a small, homegrown counterpart in the United States: Old House Gardens . . . . The impassioned work of Scott Kunst . . ., [it’s] the only garden supplier in the world devoted exclusively to offering heirloom bulbs and preserving the increasingly endangered varieties.”
Philadelphia Inquirer, “Keeping Blooms of Yore from Fading Away,” by Denise Cowie, Oct. 11, 2003. Denise can’t resist our rare tulips from the Hortus Bulborum.
Fine Gardening, “Antique Beauties: Heirloom Dahlias, Gladiolus, and Cannas,” by Scott Kunst, May/June 2003. When Fine Gardening invited Scott to tell its readers about our antique dahlias, cannas, and glads, he was happy to oblige. His article is illustrated with dramatic photos of a baker’s dozen of our very best.
Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Plants and Garden News, “Heirloom Bulbs: A Selection of Unique and Endangered Beauties for the Garden,” by Scott Kunst, cover article September 2002.
Horticulture, “Tulips with a Past,” by Scott Kunst, pages 46-51, February 2002.
Garden Design, “Growing: In with the Old,” by Franziska Reed Huxley, April-May, 1995
