Summer Bulbs on Sale

I know it is a little late to be buying summer bulbs but at our local Wal-Mart today all bulbs were .50/bag, so I stocked up(Daylily's, Asciatic lily's, Glads, Dahlias, and Caladiums) put them in the ground and will hope for the best! But if anyone is interested.....check out Wal-Mart! I'm giving them a chance!

Be careful, bkgardens. Every bag of bulbs I bought from WalMart this year has had to be returned except two. Either they were completely dried out and obviously dead or they were rotted.

And of the two remaining I'm certain I'm going to have to return at least one.

I've had really good luck with WalMart bulbs in the past but not this year. BTW, the ones in the green bags seem to be the worst.

Of course you can always take them back if they're not satisfactory.

Yeah, you are probably right. I did not spend a lot of money so I wouldn't care if they didn't pop up.

I think it's OK to buy for almost nothing. Not too much ventured, not too much lost. However, do ck those packages before leaving the store. Squeeze them to make sure there is something inside. A few weeks ago I got a Walmart "bargain" and when I got home and opened the package of dahlias, there was nothing, zilch, nada inside the bag.

Yeah that is exactly what I did.....I made sure there was some life going on....esp. with my daylily's, dahlia's......now my glads I am taking my chances. But I have planted glads before that I didn't think would grow....and they always suprise me....so I hope.......

I tried that with one of the green bags. Definitely felt a nice plump lump in there. Joke was on me - LOL - what was in there was a completely dried out peat pot full of peat. There were a few loose bits of root in the bag and that was the only signs of life. Or what had at some point been life.

Those green bags are horrible.....first thing I did when I got home was open them and found that there were new roots growing. We will see.......I'm sorry you had bad luck.....so did Wal-Mart replace them or did you just get your money back?

I just got my money back. These were all bought earlier this spring, not on clearance. They have all of them on clearance here too now but I wasn't tempted.

I have a hunch they're using a different vendor for the bulbs this year. I mean how hard to you have to try to kill large bulbs and tubers like dahlias, cannas and lilies?

It's also possible they got them in early and left them outside in freezing temperatures. WalMart seems to think that Virginia and Florida have the same climate. But with most of them they were just completely dried out, which makes me think they were just very old. I had one sack of cannas that were rotted mush. The rest were all dried to the point of complete deadness.

I think they get them early and keep them too long. Since they just mark them down and throw them away at the end they might as well leave them available for sale until the bitter end. I work for WalMart and start asking for discounts fairly early because I know how long they intend to keep the bulbs. I have given up buying any iris from Walmart. They look like they've been stored for years. It may take up to 2 years for the rhizomes to recover enough to even attempt flowering.
I did get a good deal (I think?) on the leftover potted hyacinths from mid spring that had flowered out in the pots. I paid 25 cents a pot for about 50 pots. There appeared to be 3 bulbs in each pot. Hopefully I can get them in the ground and have some for next spring.

Always ask at a WalMart. Explain the lifecycle of the bulb and that the more tender ones will rot out in the bag. Sometimes they will make a deal and just override the regular price at the register. I've found that it never hurts to ask, the guy at our store is more familiar with the trees and shrubs and grass seed stuff than the smaller scale plants and bulbs. Now that he knows I know some stuff about those things he comes and asks me questions or sends customers over to me in Sporting Goods. It kills me to see decent plants and bulbs go to waste = )

I got some of the petered out tulips in a pot at Walmart a couple of years ago. I now have one that has spread into a very nice clump and they bloomed for almost two months this year.

I've always assumed that forced bulbs would need at least a year to recover but these all bloomed the next spring. So I think you're going to find your hyacinths were a super bargain.

That makes me feel better:) I had asked what he was going to do with them because they were parked in the back corner of the patio and were dying back. I had really only wanted 4 or 5 pots but he said take em all, a quarter each. I took my 10 and gave the rest to a lady I know who has a huge lot with no landscaping and no budget. If they were tulips I may not have gone for it but I love blue hyacinths!

dmac that was nice.

Thanks, my eyes are bigger than my garden. This lady is super sweet and she's worked for me for almost 10 years. When she started with me she and her family were also farming tobacco and she worked at WMart full time. Her husband was legally blind and her son is physically handicapped from a car accident when he was young. He would farm with his parents and work as an auto mechanic until his legs and back started acting up. Miss Rosetta is 70 now and she's starting to show some signs of aging with forgetfulness and loss of hearing but I wouldn't trade her for anyone. When he husband passed she finally was able to get out of farming, her son signed up for disability so she didn't have to pay his medical costs and was able to buy her own 8 acres. It's seriously wild and they are always digging up or chopping down something. I try to buy something for her everytime I get something for me. I also buy stuff I want but don't have space for at my apartment so I can enjoy it vicariously:LOL:

Dmac, what a great story!!!

I checked on a glad bulb that I bought at .50 and roots are starting to show....so I'm thinking they were a great buy! That is all so far.......