I only wish that kind of diversity was available her in the Thomasville, Georgia/Tallahassee, Florida area! Ah, well...we enjoy the benefits of small towns/cities, so we must pay with lack of selection in some areas.... Erin Grace, Thomasville, Georgia, USA -----Original Message----- From: pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:pbs-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Jim McKenney Sent: Saturday, October 18, 2008 4:44 PM To: 'Pacific Bulb Society' Subject: [pbs] Bulbs on offer in larger shops I've visited several of the larger retail garden shops here in the greater Washington, D.C. area during the last few weeks, and I'm really impressed with the wide range of bulbs on offer. Yesterday I visited one shop in particular had a really good selection of minor bulbs, including such things as Dichelostemma, Calochortus, many many Allium, Amaryllis belladonna, Lycoris, - just about everything I've seen in some of the mail order catalogs. I can remember the days when if one wanted something like Iris 'Katharine Hodgkin', it had to be ordered from English or European sources. Now it goes for all of sixty-five cents at these garden centers. To give you an idea of the diversity in tulips, over two hundred cultivars are on offer in the different shops. Evidently the different local garden centers do not buy from the same wholesalers: the range of tulips on offer from shop to shop is not the same. I didn't bother to count the daffodils, but they too went on forever. Mid week I gave a talk on bulbs to a local group; I went through over 200 slides in about an hour and a quarter. I kept the emphasis on more familiar things with a sprinkling of less familiar sorts. Or at least that's what I thought I was doing. But now that I know what that one shop had on offer, I'm sorry I didn't make my presentation a bit more esoteric! Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone 7 My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/ _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.ibiblio.org http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/