This Week in Wildflower Gardening

Freelance writer Linda Owen wrote a really nice story about our Vermont Wildflower Farm and American Meadows for an August issue of Cappers Magazine. Cappers is published in Topeka, KS, and has been a favorite family magazine for over 120 years!
Thanks Linda, and if you'd like to read the article and see the great photos, just click here: Cappers Article by Linda Owen.

Here comes fall, which means bulbs, which means Daffodils and Tulips. We just finished some fascinating research on these two flowers as wildflowers. Do you know the stories? Do you know who Narcissus was? How about Echo and Nemesis? They're all in Greek Mythology, of course, but they're in the wild bulb history too. And did you know some of the original tulips came from Afghanistan? The story doesn't start in Holland, but it goes there, and ends in your backyard. Read all about it here:The Wild Tulips and Daffodils.

It's something we've been working on for years--to offer our wildgardeners good perennial plants to add to their meadows. After all when you plant a meadow of wildflower seeds, it's great to have a few mature plants to plug in so you'll have perennial bloom right away. We've now found a great source, and we've hand-picked the list. Most are close hybrids to favorite wild and native plants, like Bee Balm in photo, plus hybrids of our native hibiscus species, a great group of coreopsis, blazing stars, coneflowers, gaillardias, lobelias, penstemons and more. Then there are over 20 favorite Ornamental Grasses and a group of favorite native ferns. Take a look, and let me know your comments. And by the way, our flowering trees, shrubs and hardy low-maintenance roses are back and ready for fall plantings.

We just arranged to have four of the most famous "species tulips" in our Fall Bulb Sale, ongoing now on the website. Most gardeners don't know that the original tulips, the wildflowers of the bunch, are small little gems that occur naturally in Central Asia, all the way from Iran into eastern Europe. And wild daffodils hail from Spain and Portugal. It's hard to believe these little flowers have been hybridized into the flashy big tulips and daffodils we all know and love, but the Dutch have been at it for centuries. The photo at left shows four of the most famous "wild" tulips we now have in the Bulb Dept. And by the way, all the "wild" bulbs we have are not really wild at all. They're the originals, but they're all produced in Holland, never gathered from the wild in their native lands. Enjoy!