lily bulb price differences, why so much?

Hi everyone,
I am workin on orderin flowers and bulbs for spring and find huge differences in prices on lily bulbs. Some places offer 50 hybrid lilly bulbs(10-12cm) for 16.99. Then you go to like some of the top 30 mail order places on garden watch dog and they are like a dozen bulbs(12-14cm) for 39.99. Grant it they are a little bigger but that is like 10 times more expensive! Is the quality or somthin that poor in the cheaper ones or what. I pretty new to flower gardening in general.
Thanks, John

You just have to find the best deal. I was looking at some bulbs...one bulb was $6.99 which was fine but the shipping charge was $54.00!!

Have you tried your local garden center? You would not have to pay shipping.

I would definitely check out the Watchdog ratings on the cheaper places--if they have good ratings then you can feel good about saving yourself some money, but sometimes the places that have really cheap prices also have really bad ratings so if that's the case you'd be better off going with the more expensive ones.

Johnndeana

another thing you may want to consider is to join Daves' Garden. It is $20 a year for a subscription, but that $20 buys a lot. One of the things that is open to subscribers of Daves' is the co ops. We just finished a lily bulb co op and the bulbs should be mailed out in the next several weeks. I was able to pick up some of the fancy lily bulbs for not a lot of money. The co ops generally use some of these vendors that you see on the Garden Watchdog. You can also get alot more than lily bulbs - and quite often some of the new varieties of plants as they are introduced into the gardening world, are also offered in these co ops. I know what I have spent on co ops has saved me more than $20 if I were to buy these things from a catalog or a store.

Carolyn

Also, new cultivars are generally more expensive.

that and the fancy ones. Have you priced the martagons?

Completely agree with Carolyn about the co-ops. Just purchased bulbs, too. Some were as low as $1.30...of course there's S&H, but you can be sure that it won't be $54!!! Wowsers!
Bev

Bev

you are right - it seems to me the last co op was a postage rate of $9 for shipping up to 100 bulbs and then it went up from there. I think the $54 is better put into buying more bulbs!

^_^

I seem to never have enough bulbs...obsessed much?? Spring planted, fall planted...doesn't make a difference, lol!

wow thanks to all for the advice we werent expecting such a response! This website is great! we will take all of your advice and will subscribe to Daves garden. Thanks to all!!!!!!!!!!!!
John an Deana

Our pleasure:-) There are plenty of awesome people around here who are very generous with their experiences and knowledge. You will love it! Make sure to let us know if you have questions about anything...we were all there once upon a time, lol!
Bev

another thing that I really like is that although I have been gardening from one form to another for a long, long time - I find that I am still learning about gardening. I have picked up several new things here at Dave's and I think it is exciting to learn new things and new techniques.