Expert: Long Island Gardener - 9/3/2007

Question
I'm looking to purchase a fair number of bulbs for planting this fall. Would you have a recommendation for a good company for buying bulbs on line. Thanks!

Answer
Hands down favorites:

Brent and Beckys Bulbs (www.brentandbeckysbulbs.com) is a company that is run by the Grand Dame and Dean of the Daffodil business and now of the bulbs business.  They write books, they give speeches, they hand out advice and are the most highly respected human beings in the US in their field.  They are also amazingly the most down to earth farmer-types you will ever see.  Their prices are competitive and their products and advice are unparalleled.  Nuf said.  I love these guys.

Close second: Van Engelen Bulbs.  They branched out last year into things like Peonies etc, but the business they were in decades ago is still the one I admire most.  www.vanengelen.com is the website.  There are specials at the end of the year, but they come way too close for curtain time in my region -- last year they came the day before the hard frost.  The prices are insane.  Bulbs should be planted en masse, and they make that possible.

My only problem with these two companies is that if you love your bulbs, you can't easily figure out what the order was -- I have tried to do this a decade later, and there is no record.  That's asking a lot, I know.  I am a tried and true customer for both of them and recommend them both highly.  Good luck and don't go crazy.