An English Bulb Meadow

I like working with "Colorblends" Wholesale Flowerbulbs. Their Tommies are
$10/100; Scilla sibericas (not certain if their variety is
the Spring Beauty or not) $15/100. Hope this helps.
Savita Wilder (Zn8/9) West Coast

-----Original Message-----
From: ds429@frontier.com
Sent: Friday, August 7, 2015 1:30 PM
To: Rick Buell via pbs
Subject: Re: [pbs] An English Bulb Meadow

I have been longing to make better use of my lawn. I want to experiment with
a drift of bulbs in the lawn. I have decided after reading these posts and
after growing hardy bulbs for 50 years, that I want to plant, in the grass,
Crocus tommasinianus, Puschkinia libanotica, Scilla siberica ‘Spring Beauty’,
and some reliable Muscari selection. I have searched the websites of my
usual favorite bulb sellers. Some of them have “upgraded” their websites so
that they are much less navigable. Others charge unreasonable prices for
common things like the old-fashioned “Tommies” which should be as cheap as
the dirt they grow in. And others do not have puschkinia or even some of the
really common species. Can anyone recommend a source for all of these
genera/species in quantities of a hundred for a “reasonable” price?

BTW: off topic, has anyone else noticed how badly designed some commercial
websites are from the customer’s point of view? I assume the companies have
paid a lot of money for a new and better website, usually one that makes
things work better for the heads of the operations, more difficult for the
employees, and often more difficult for customers to navigate. They must be
losing business; they are certainly losing mine. Doesn‘t anyone give these
things a test run?

Dell, in WV, USA, zone 5/6? where it hasn’t rained enough since June, when
it rained too much.

From: Travis Owen
Sent: ‎Friday‎, ‎August‎ ‎7‎, ‎2015 ‎2‎:‎48‎ ‎PM
To: Rick Buell via pbs

My country yard (5 acre lot, semi-rural) is a rodent habitat. Moles,
gophers, rabbits, tree squirrels, ground squirrels, mice... Bulbs are lucky
to survive. Then there are the deer.

Part of my yard has practically no topsoil, it is alluvial in nature (full
of large rocks from an ancient river basin). Surrounding are douglas-fir and
pine trees, adding a nice needle mulch every year. This is the area I've
chosen to naturalize some Crocus and Scilla, small bulbs that I can plant
easily in the difficult substrate. Moles and gophers stay away from these
very rocky spots. Squirrels sometimes dig, but not too deep. To deal with
deer, I've arranged some dead Arctostaphylos shrubs, the twisted wood is
gorgeous, to obscure the view and restrict access by deer (inherently lazy
browsers, I think). I have lost not a single Crocus so far in this spot, but
I've lost many in areas with friable loam.

Hopefully the bulbs will increase well. Photos next year.

Travis Owen
Rogue River, OR

amateuranthecologist.blogspot.com
http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/

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