Though preservation is our mission, bulbs drop out of our catalog every year.
Sometimes it’s because the harvest was too small. Sometimes it’s because they’re widely available elsewhere and don’t need our help. And sometimes it’s because we’ve lost our only known source due to severe weather (cold, drought, etc.), health problems (a debilitating stroke), or economic woes (small farmers are always at risk).
The good news is that, in time, we’re often able to return these bulbs to our catalog. So here’s a list of many we’ve offered in the past. For an alert the moment they’re available again, subscribe to our free email newsletter. Or to find a similar bulb, try our easy Advanced Bulb Search.
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Enjoy the same gorgeous, easy heirlooms that OHG founder, Scott planted on TV with Martha! We’ll send you 5 small-flowered ‘Atom’ gladiolus, 3 fragrant ‘Mexican Single’ tuberoses, and 1 fabulous dahlia (our choice) for bouquets. You, Martha, saving money, and a summer full of heirloom beauty – it’s a good thing! For zones 4a-8b(10aWC).
For more ‘Atom’, tuberoses, and all different dahlias, order additional samplers.
Last offered in 2022. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, click to sign up for an email alert.
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When one of Texas’s most respected nurseries offered us huge bulbs of this classic crinum, we reserved them all! With neat, slender foliage, ‘Bradley’ is small enough to integrate easily into perennial borders. Its fragrant blossoms are a deep rose-pink. 2-3 feet, zones 7b-9b(10bWC). Last offered in spring 2005. We may offer it again someday.
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Back when Victorian taste was celebrating everything exotic, elephant ears were very cool. And their big, heart-shaped leaves look great with plastic flamingos! Give them lots of water and fertilizer in sun to light shade. Hardy in zones 7b-11b, they’re great anywhere as annuals or pot plants. 3-5 feet, big Florida bulbs. Last offered in spring 2009. Widely available elsewhere.
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What a knock-out! The heart-shaped leaves of “imperial taro” are a dramatic blackish purple highlighted by apple green veins — like a painting on velvet that’s all-natural and luxurious instead of tacky. Our vigorous small plants will grow to 36 inches or more. Constant moisture is essential (set pot in saucer of water). zones 8a-11b or bring indoors in winter. From Florida. Last offered in spring 2009. Widely available elsewhere.
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Extraordinarystems? You betcha! They’re TALL — to 8 feet in ideal conditions, to 5 feet in a 10-inch pot on our porch here — and gorgeous, deep maroon-purple, like antique mahogany. Its dark emerald leaves are great, too, and it multiplies by runners! Constant moisture is essential. zones 8a-11b or bring indoors in winter. Vigorous small plantlets, from Florida. Last offered in spring 2007. Available elsewhere.
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One of the most famous crinums of all, ‘Ellen Bosanquet’ (say BOEZ-n-kwet) was bred by Florida’s Louis Bosanquet and named for his beloved wife. Its “luminous raspberry” flowers (Organic Gardening, 1950) have a vanilla-like fragrance and bloom from June to fall above mounds of glossy, wavy leaves. A vigorous multiplier, it can take total neglect but blooms best with regular watering and, in the South, a touch of shade. 2-3’, zones 7b-9b(10bWC), from Louisiana.
Last offered in 2021. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, click to sign up for an email alert.
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For 60 years or more, this classic milk-and-wine lily has been multiplying without care at the family homeplace of our 70-something Louisiana grower. It’s one of the myriad forms of C. x herbertii, a cross first made in 1819 by Dean Herbert, the godfather of crinums. Its clusters of 10-20 candy-striped flowers on 3-foot stalks open wide, filling the air with fragrance, and then mature into gracefully dangling bells. Give it plenty of sun and in a few years you’ll have a huge clump blooming off and on all summer long. Big bulbs, zones 7b-10b(11bWC), from Louisiana.
Last offered in 2021. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, click to sign up for an email alert.
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The powelliis are the cold-hardiest crinums, and ‘Album’ is widely considered the most beautiful form. “It’s a plant of superlative quality,” says expert Scott Ogden, “with tall scapes bearing large umbels of shapely, snowy blooms” from July into early fall, in sun or light shade. 36”, zones 7a-10b(11aWC), BIG bulbs, 3-4 inches across, from our 70-years-young Louisiana grower.
Last offered in 2021. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, click to sign up for an email alert.
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If ‘Lucifer’ has whetted your appetite for crocosmias, give this antique original a try. When we couldn’t find true stock offered anywhere, we turned to our friends at the 1857 Manship House Museum in Jackson, Mississippi, where it’s been flourishing for generations. With cottage-garden informality and spectacular vigor, it’s a pass-along classic. Zones 7a-9b(11bWC) or store in winter like glads, from Louisiana.
Last offered in 2021. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, click to sign up for an email alert.
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“The Luther Burbank of France,” Victor Lemoine introduced many of the 19th century’s most exciting new lilacs, peonies, and glads — and the first named crocosmias. His fiery ‘Météore’ endures, lighting up the late summer garden with a smoldering mix of orange, red, and gold as it has for well over a century. 22-26”, zones 7a-9b(10bWC) or store like glads, from Holland. Unfortunately we lost our grower and haven’t found another who offers authentic stock.
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With the largest flowers we’ve ever seen on a crocosmia – a whopping 3 to 4 inches across – this vibrant beauty has been turning heads for over a century now. It’s “a real star” and “a stunner,” says David Fenwick, former holder of the UK National Collection of Crocosmia, who ranks it #2 on his all-time Top 10 list. 30-36”, zones 6b-9b(10bWC), from Washington.
Last offered in 2022. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, click to sign up for an email alert.
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This is the cold-hardiest amaryllis and “the finest... for garden culture,” according to Greg Grant in The Southern Heirloom Garden. It’s also the oldest hybrid amaryllis, bred by British watchmaker Arthur Johnson in 1799, and offered by nurseries in Virginia and California by 1853. With graceful red and white flowers, it’s hardy in zones 7a-11b, says Tulsa’s Russell Studebaker in full-page praise of it in Horticulture magazine. It’s not quite as easy to bloom in pots as the modern monsters, but if we can do it, you can, too! We ship small plants that will bloom the following year. Click here for a cool St. Joe’s lily image from 1920. Unfortunately we lost our grower and haven’t found another who offers authentic stock.
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Just 3 feet tall, this bright little pixie has glossy, red-to-orange flowers that are too small to be gaudy. Native to icy Siberia, it thrives in steamy Charleston as well, and although it can be short-lived, it will self-sow happily. Aka Siberian lily, L. tenuifolium, early summer, 2-3 feet, zones 4a-8a(10bWC), from Holland.
Last offered in 2023. If you’d like to be notified the next time we offer this treasure, click to sign up for an email alert.
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Sorry, crop failure! ‘Casa Blanca’ may be fine, but we like this wild ancestor even better. Richly fragrant, its flowers are more graceful, less huge, with showier jade-green nectaries. It’s one of the many color forms of the “Japan lily” which sold for “extravagant prices” when first imported and became one of the most popular flowers of the Victorian era. Late-summer, 4-5’, 5a-7b(9bWC), from Holland. Last offered in 2012. ‘speciosum album’ is now commercially extinct in the Netherlands.
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The golden, crocus-like blooms of this tough little pixie can open throughout the summer, especially in well-watered gardens, but its glory days come in early fall. It takes poor, droughty, and even boggy soils, and when happy – even in a pot – it self-sows eagerly. Native to the Yucatan, it’s recommended in American garden books by the 1930s at least. Grassy foliage, aka Z. sulphurea, 6-8”, zones 7a-10b, from Holland. Last offered in spring 2015. Widely available elsewhere.
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