Who do you buy your fall bulbs from?

I want to order 100 bulbs for planting this fall, any suggestion?

Van Engelin probably has the best prices for large amounts of bulbs.

Have you checked the two Brent and Becky's coops going on right now? One is for tulips, the other has various bulbs.

It would help if you indicated what type you are looking for, or if you are open. If you are open I find Bleek's website Touch of Nature to have good value and top service, but a somewhat limited selection. There are other places where the merchandise is good, but the service terrible. Check the Wacthdog tab and read reviews.

I've also had good luck with the bulbs I've bought from that national store beginning with W. They have their critics for other reasons, but they seems to have nice bulbs and get them early in the season. As a general rule, I find the mailorder places with the weird coupon deals to be substandard in quality, and most of the discounts absorbed by high shipping charges. Always check shipping charges first with any vendor.

Hart, have you ever co-oped? I saw that I just wasn't sure.

No, I haven't but I'm not concerned. Especially about this one - Brent and Becky's have outstanding bulbs.

Andidandi, I've had really good luck with Walmart bulbs too, until this year. I've had to take back every single bag of summer bulbs I've bought from them this year except three and it looks like nothing is coming up from one of those and only two of six from the other one. Of course the way our Walmart cares for their plants, perhaps they stored them outside in freezing weather this spring and it could be just a local thing. It's not unusual to see them get in huge shipments of tropical plants in March (because this is Virginia so we must have tropical temperatures in March, right?!) and leave them all outside in the parking lot to die.

On the other hand, I've gotten excellent bulbs from Brecks.

I get all my bulbs from Van Engelen now. Better prices, great quality and great choices. Don't want to deal with B&B any more since my lilies from them last year were a disaster. I am still waiting for Brent to call me back. It's been a year now.

I've had good experience with both Brent and Becky's and John Scheepers. (John Scheepers is part of the same company as Van Engelen; they sell the same bulbs in smaller quanties.) I would avoid the "big box" stores - quality is really variable and the bulbs are frequently misidentified. To me, the effort of planting the bulbs properly outweighs a little bit of extra cost so I would rather pay a bit more for quality.

I've gotten absolutely wonderful bulbs from Colorblends for the past two years. Check out the Garden Watchdog on them. If you're looking for quantity with great quality, good prices and service, that's a great place to get it.

I second Mr. Tom wholeheartedly.

What time last year did you buy Lilies from B&B last year, Pitimpanai? My dealings with B&B have shown them to bend over backwards for a customer, even unnecessarily. I have even e-mailed personally with Becky.

John Scheepers is my vendor of choic. Brent and Becky's is a close second followed by Dutch Gardens (customer service).

Another good one is Old House Gardens. They have great customer service, offer top quality bulbs on old fashioned, hard to get, varieties

http://www.oldhousegardens.com

I had been getting Lilies and many other bulbs from B&B for several years. The last couple years I ordered more than 4000 assorted bulbs each fall. Last spring, many of the Lilies from them had virus and infected my existing collection as well. Another gardener in PA reported on the Lily forum on the GW that his Lilies from B&B came down with virus also; so it was not just mine.

I called B&B late last summer. Customer service told me someone would get back to me. Never heard from anybody there. I posted my comments on the Garden Watchdog. Someone emailed me for my phone # and told me Brent would call me. To date, I have not heard from Brent either.

I will not take any risk with them again. I found that the prices at B&B had increased substantially for the past 3 years anyway and their tulips are not better than VE's. Their prices used to be comparable to VE's, not any more.

What do you do about virus? I put in over 100 lilies from them this Spring; I wonder how much trouble I'm in..

Pitimpinai, perhaps you're confusing B&B with another vendor? Because I just read through all of the comments in the watchdog on B&B back to 2003 and I see no comments posted by you or anything mentioning anyone receiving bulbs with viruses.

Unless it's there and I'm just not seeing it.

If you go to the Van Engelen website, they'll send you their catalog. I have ordered from them many times and have never been disappointed...everything has always been the color I ordered...excellent quality and always delivered on time.

I just got their fall catalog yesterday. Like TomH said above, you can order small quantities from them...unlike some of the other co's...

I stopped buying bulbs from the warehouse stores years ago...they are mostly mislabeled and hardly ever the color they're supposed to be.

On Jan 14, 2003, Pitimpinai Chicago, IL wrote:
I started to order from Brent & Becky's Bulbs a few years ago and have been very pleased with all the bulbs and service. The price was lower than Park's, higher than Van Engelen, but all the bulbs were exceptional. Most of the time I would rather pay more, because I have more trust in their quality than Van Engelen's.

I don't know about planting lilies in the fall. I didn't usually have good luck with fall deliveries from other companies. The lilies were oftentimes mushy upon arrival. If I hesitate to order for fall, I can always order from B & B for the following spring planting.

I highly recommend B & B to anyone who still hesitates to give them a try. You will not be disappointed.


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On April 23rd, 2003, nunoi added the following:

Love Brent & Becky's bulbs. 29.5 lbs of them arrived over a week ago. Every single one of them was great looking.

The Lilies were enormous as usual, moist, with no rotten parts like the ones from other places. Much cheaper and much larger too.

I will enjoy the fragrance and the blossoms this summer.

I already compiled a long list to order from them for fall planting.

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On August 22nd, 2003, nunoi added the following:

All the bulbs grew beautifully. There were numerous blossoms on each lily whereas lilies from other outfits would have only 1 or a few. One Lily Regale album carried 23! They perfumed the entire garden in the evening. I received the most compliments ever for them and have acquired more than one customers for B & B.

The fragrance for Freesia was heavenly.

Placed an order for over 2000 bulbs for this fall planting. The biggest order from B & B yet. Can't wait to see my garden next spring.
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On Dec 23, 2004, nunoi changed their rating to neutral and added the following:

I have been a Brent & Becky's customer for several years and was very pleased with their bulbs, customer service & prices.

However, these past two years the delivery was late. Last year, a few of the bulbs were moldy. The customer service was short when I called about the bad bulbs.

Their lily bulbs are always excellent, though, always the largest in size.

With all the accolades, I wonder whether they thought they had all the customers in their hands, though, because this year the prices jumped at a breathtaking rate.

Their prices used to be comparable to Van Engelen. Now there is a HUGE difference. Only a few of B & B's items were sold at a lower price this year.

I used to split my order equally between the two. This fall, I only ordered from B & B those bulbs that I could not find at VE or the few that were lower. The bulk of my $1,500.00 bulbs order went to VE. Only about $150.00 was spent on B & B.

Too bad. I am waiting to see whether the lilies will cost much more next spring. I already saw a big jump from last spring to this fall on the same lilies.
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On May 2nd, 2006, Pitimpinai changed the rating from neutral to negative and added the following:

I am sorry to say I will have to rerate Brent & Becky's. I have ordered so many Lilies from them for many years that my collection grew. I ordered another large collection last year. What a disaster. Several of the Orientals were infected with virus. They in turn infected my existing collection. I called the customer service and was told someone would get back to me. To date I have not heard anything from them.

Won't order anything from them again.

I bought some end of season lilies on sale for 50% off from Brent and Becky's and they arrived quickly and looked great, not moldy, mushy or splaying open. I let them sit for a week in the bag because I got busy and they all had started sprouting! They are all potted up and about 6-8 inches tall now.

Check out the co-op's forum here too. There are some great prices going on there. There is currently a Brent and Becky's co-op for some lilies, allium and hyacinth.

Scheepers is one I plan to order from and I love the ColorBlends catalog. They show some really great color combos from traditional to really bold (tulips).

Larisa,
Sorry, I missed your question. I just dug out all the Lilies that were infected & junked them. That was quite a few hundred bulbs. :-(

Good luck with yours. They might be OK this year. I never had problem with Lilies from B&B until last year.

what does a virus do to the Lilies?

What about Buggycrazy?

She has a new website

http://buggycrazy.vstore.ca/.

and lots of DGers rave about her products.

I have never ordered from her, but I hope to.

Generally I order from Scheepers/VanEngelen's operation. One of their specialties is Amaryllis for fall orders. And they have all kinds of the 'minor' bulbs at good prices.

Also B&B and Bleek from Touch of Nature sent great Alliums last year.

And I like 'EZ to Grow Bulbs', bulb specialists for warmer zones.

I buy from the big box stores at close out prices, but always check for mouldy bulbs, etc., and I like to use these to fill in in the back of the yard.

I will be ordering from John Scheeper's and from Bluestone Perennials. I have ordered from both and never been disappointed. Tamara

When I got married, I asked everyone to abstain from a gift, or get us blubs if they insisted on a gift (we really had everything else we could possibly need). 1200 bulbs later, we have a lovely naturizing drift. But I'm hopelessly addicted. I placed my first order from VE this year, and am looking forward to my 600 new daffodils! A postcard arrive a coupl eof weeks later confirming my order and address details. I am looking forward to next year when I can post what I hope is another positive review for VE. So far, so good.

This message was edited Jul 4, 2006 1:44 PM

Virus causes streakings in leaves and flowers. The bulbs also rot. I had that in spade after adding new lilies from B&B last year. I tried to remove them all, but still see some infection on several of my lilies this year. Not a pretty sight.