Announcing Our Legacy Stories Contest Winners!
We invited you to share your heartfelt connections to Brent & Becky’s flower bulbs, and your stories did not disappoint! From cherished family traditions to unforgettable garden moments, each submission was a beautiful reminder of the impact flowers can have on our lives.
🌟 Congratulations to Our Winners! 🌟
Honorable Mentions
Thank you to everyone who participated in celebrating our 125-year legacy. Your stories are an inspiration, and we’re honored to be part of your gardens and memories.
Stay tuned for more special moments as we continue our anniversary celebrations!
🏆 First Place – Jessica Swencki – Aftermath of Hurricane Florence
A Garden of Memories: Blooms of Love and Resilience
In our family, flowers have always been more than just plants. They are living memories, symbols of love, resilience, and connection. My deep bond with Brent and Becky’s bulbs took root in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, a storm that reshaped our lives in ways I never could have imagined.
The floodwaters stole our home, our garden, and so many cherished pieces of our past. But the devastation extended beyond our home—it also took Yellowbird Cottage, the small retreat my mother, Lela Frances “Fran” Bullard, built after my father’s passing to be closer to us. That cottage was her sanctuary, a place where she could heal, find joy, and tend to the flowers that brought her peace. Losing it felt like losing a part of her heart.
Forced to start anew, my husband and I rebuilt in Burgaw, North Carolina, in 2021, while my mother, needing a more accessible environment, relocated to an apartment nearby in Wilmington. Though she could no longer tend a large garden, her love for flowers never faded. She found joy in container gardens on her patio, birdwatching from her window, and, most of all, spending time in our yard, where she could still feel connected to the earth.
In our new, stark yard, I saw not just loss but the possibility of renewal. That fall, a package arrived from Brent and Becky’s—a box filled with hope in the form of unique daffodil bulbs. My mother and I spent the day planting them, our hands working in silent harmony as we transformed the bare earth into a promise of beauty. It wasn’t just about planting flowers—it was about reclaiming joy.
When spring arrived, so did the blooms. Vibrant yellows and soft pastels painted our yard in a way that felt like a celebration—a sign that despite everything we had endured, life continued. My mother and I would sit on the porch, coffee in hand, admiring the blossoms and soaking in their quiet magic.
In March of 2023, as another season of blooms arrived, my mother’s journey on this earth came to a close. She spent her final days in a hospice center, and beside her, the daffodils we planted together brightened the room, just as they had always brightened our lives. Though she was leaving this world, it felt as if she was simply becoming part of the beauty she had always nurtured. Now, each time I see those same flowers pushing through the soil, I don’t just remember her—I feel her presence, her love, and her joy for life.
As I look out my window today, I see them again—ready to welcome another spring. They remind me of my mother’s gentle strength, her love for life’s simple joys, and the enduring connection we shared through gardening. Brent and Becky’s flowers are more than just part of my landscape; they are woven into the fabric of my memories, bringing me solace, reminding me to keep growing, and, most importantly, making me smile.
🥈 Second Place: Liz Dutton – Liz’s Garden – Where Children Grow
“Liz’s Garden—where children grow” — the sign was made for me as a gift. You see, I’ve operated a home daycare on this two-acre plot for 38 years.
Every autumn, the children have worked alongside me planting “sleeping beauties” (that’s what we’ve nicknamed your bulbs). It is nothing short of miraculous to the kids that we can put what looks like a rock in the soil and beautiful flowers come up in the spring. After all these years, our daffodils, lilies, and tulips have multiplied to hundreds and hundreds and bloom for many weeks.
The children set up a lemonade stand each Thursday from spring through autumn, selling flowers, lemonade, and homemade cookies. It’s become a fixture in the neighborhood with many repeat customers. Even the police and firefighters stop by now and then—that really excites the kids!
The kids use the money they earn to pay for field trips to the county fair, a movie, museums, amusement parks, and more. They share the beauty of your bulbs, wait on the customers, learn how to handle money, and are very proud to pay their own way.
I firmly believe children deserve to grow up among beautiful things and be surrounded by nature. Their playground is a garden that they helped to plant! I’ve even had kids looking over your catalog with as much enthusiasm as they do the toy catalogs at Christmas!
Honorable Mentions
Christie Purifoy – Growing Home
A true homecoming is never as simple as crossing a threshold. It is a process that looks more like the mysterious, underground growth of a buried bulb.
When we first moved to the red brick farmhouse at the far end of an avenue of maple trees, we brought three small children, one unborn daughter, and a weight of hopes and dreams to plant in that ground. For years, we’d been looking for a place to sink our roots.
We had loved the leafy Chicago neighborhood where our older children had been born. We became gardeners there, tending petunias in window boxes and tomatoes in a community garden. The suburban Florida home we came to next—though it was beautiful—seemed somehow too unchanging. We missed the adventure of planting our feet in one place while four seasons shifted overhead.
On the first day of August that year, we finally came home to the house called Maplehurst in Pennsylvania. Our daughter was born in September. Trusting that a long winter in our lives had ended, we gave our daughter the name Spring.
In October, I wrapped her tightly to my body and set out with my husband and several net bags full of papery bulbs from Brent and Becky’s. We had never grown daffodils, but I had read in a gardening magazine that they could be planted in great drifts even in the grass.
The months that followed our hopeful planting were difficult. I struggled to emerge from the murky depths of postpartum depression, and I tried and failed to meet even one neighbor. The houses that had been built on land that was once the farm were all shut tight against the cold, and the sidewalks remained empty.
One day in February, I suddenly imagined a crowd of neighborhood children racing down the grassy banks that lined our avenue of trees. That vision felt like an invitation to take a leap of faith, and so, a few weeks later, my oldest child helped me deliver one hundred invitations to a neighborhood Easter egg hunt.
One more swift blizzard blew through before Easter, but while watching the snow melt in the March sunshine, I noticed green leaves like bunny ears. Had they sprung up overnight? And what would happen next?
The morning of our hunt was quiet, until—seeming to arrive all at once—the neighbors began to pour like a river through the gate in our back fence. It was a turning point as sure as the shifting seasons.
But what I remember most are the daffodils. As I walked slowly behind all those running, laughing children, I saw what looked like a sky filled with yellow stars. We had buried our hopes, but the winter had done its work. The daffodils were singing, and they have returned every spring since to renew the promise of home.
Linda Uttech – Winters in Alaska
Winters in Alaska are long, cold, and dark. Our shortest day is in December when we receive 5 hours and 21 minutes of daylight. It usually doesn’t get light until around 10 each morning, with the sun starting to set around 2:30 in the afternoon.
Our growing seasons are very short, with a spring frost many times in May, and our fall frost can also come early in August. As a gardener, this is one challenging climate to garden in.
Spring is the best time of year for resilient Alaska gardeners. We long for sunshine, anything green, and the sight of lovely sprouts that have withstood a very long winter’s nap.
My small potager garden has an English theme—I call it my English Garden in Alaska. The garden is filled with antique urns and statues collected over the years, along with many perennials. One thing that was missing was bulbs, the kinds you see in the beautiful photos and books of English gardens.
I discovered Brent & Becky’s a few years back when searching for places that would ship to Alaska and, even better, ship on a date of my choosing. Many growers don’t understand our seasonality, and they have been very accommodating to this gardener’s needs. Brent & Becky’s carry so many beautiful varieties of bulbs to select from. I love to curate and plan my garden each season, changing the design and palette of colors. Their bountiful supply allows me to paint a new picture with flowers each spring.
The first year, I ordered the most beautiful butter-yellow Akebono Tulips and several varieties of Alliums. Seeing these strong tulips push themselves out of the ground after eight months was so exciting. The promise of all these wonderful bulbs planted in the fall was everything I had hoped for and more. The tulip-filled garden was just magical—I could stand for hours enjoying the gorgeous view. The Akebonos have definitely become a staple as they last so very long.
Soon after the tulips finish blooming, the beds are transformed when the alliums burst open. The tall, swaying stems with huge lavender and white balls look like bubbles floating in the garden beds—again, just magical!
Thank you, Brent & Becky’s, for supporting my passion and helping bring the dreams for this little English garden to life.
Suzanne McAuliffe – Gloriosa superba Rothschildiana
Meteorologists had predicted a wet summer, and it was happening. I had tended our gardens for years, starting annual seeds for spring planting and expanding borders with shrubs from local nurseries and perennials from Brent & Becky’s catalogs.
Now the challenge: to make the gardens perfect for our daughter’s home wedding. Months of edging, planting, and weeding assured me that visions of the fragrant Oriental Lily Casa Blanca—swaying and blooming, unblemished by the lily beetle or root rot—would materialize. Pearl buds of Anémone Honorine Jobert would add texture to the hazy, relaxed swaths of Ammi in the garden. Swords of delightful Gladiolus species callianthus ‘Murielae’, nodding heads of the elegant Lilium regale enticing summer butterflies, and hydrangeas’ pale pink panicles echoing the lace of my daughter’s gown—my gardens would embellish the rural landscape for her wedding.
The day came. Skies were gray. Caterers had requested blossoms for platters, and I had cut stems of yarrow, rosettes of dianthus, and sprigs of crocosmia. That morning, the air was fragrant with Casa Blanca, and wet earth squished under my feet. A grassy path my husband had tended for our daughter’s entrance was soggy under a coarse carpet, flanked by a bed of Hemerocallis—”beauty for a day”—daylilies in bud, their scapes promising an emanating scent. Droplets of morning dew winked at me.
I saw the tables under the tent, set with vases of bright sunflowers and miscanthus, and I was pleased. But when it came time to dress, I felt unsettled, annoyed with my hair. Perhaps another glimpse at my garden, where I had found purpose, would reassure me.
I looked out the open bedroom window—and to my horror, saw the caterers in the gardens, snipping buds and blossoms. I had forgotten to tell them where I’d left the cuttings. I yelled from the window—and arriving guests, hearing me shout, waved to me. Embarrassed, I waved back, dispirited.
And then, something magical happened: I remembered the Gloriosa superba ‘Rothschildiana’ blooming in the courtyard. This climbing lily, audacious in contorted form, is a member of the Colchicaceae family—its parts toxic, fatal if enough is ingested. I ran outside for a blossom, a talisman to humor me. I cut a stem and tucked the flower behind my ear, its touch a gentle sedative. Exotic, bright red with orange tints and reflexed tepals, its long stamens with dancing anthers would certainly tempt the monarch butterflies!
Back in my room, I composed myself. Perhaps having perfect gardens was a fantasy. Nevertheless, I had run the gauntlet and come to realize that my gardens would be enhanced by the happy couple and guests, not the other way around.
Seeing my reflection in the mirror and the blossom in my hair, I smiled and thanked Mother Nature for imparting her glory: Gloriosa, a gift for me from Brent & Becky on my daughter’s wedding day.
Peggy Ingles – A Work in Progress
I discovered Brent and Becky‘s when looking for a particularly adorable type of small daffodil, Jack Snipe, that I had seen in the Smithsonian Gardens in DC. Not only were you the only ones to carry this variety, but many other special ones as well.
I have only begun utilizing fall planted bulbs in the last five years or so. Apartment life, with only a balcony to “garden“ on, in addition to being a quadriplegic on a fixed income, my options are few. The smaller varieties of flowers suit my situation well.
After seeing the fabulous selection of dwarf daffodils and other flowers that you carry, plus the ability to order just 5 or 10 bulbs at a time, purchasing from you quickly became a no-brainer!
That first year, I bought some Katherine Hodgkin irises (another Smithsonian discovery), some Jack Snipes, Kokopellis, Minnows, Romieuxii and Turkestanica tulips. With the help of my ever-patient and indulgent caregivers, I got them planted, parked them on the balcony and impatiently waited for spring.
As you will see, I am not one to be satisfied by the relatively short lifespan of spring flowers. Using a selfie stick as an adaptive aid, I photograph them also, filling my camera roll with every bloom stage and angle you can imagine, even sharing on social media. (There is no such thing as too many flower photos!)
In addition, I use silica sand to dry preserve many of the flowers I grow. From these dried blooms, I have created (again with the help of my wonderful caregivers) pieces of art, such as wreaths, bouquets, and wall art. Some I give as gifts, some I keep for myself to decorate my home.
Because the unique flowers that I got from you for 2024 were so extraordinary, I decided I needed to make some pieces of art through which I could enjoy them year round. I imagined a preserved spring garden with a watercolor-type background to set the flowers onto rather than just having a plain background. Another piece is a tribute to your sweet daffodils. The results are pictured below. (You can see the flowers from your bulbs are prominently featured!)
As for the future, I was lucky enough in late fall to move to a new house with a good bit of outdoor gardening space. Since I didn’t know what to expect regarding planting in advance, I did not buy a lot of spring bulbs last year. (I did, however, place a summer order!) So get ready, I’m making a long term plan for getting this new place and its blank canvas up to speed!
As someone that has limited space and physical ability, plus very limited finances, Brent and Becky‘s has quickly become my go-to source for dependable, unique, rare and lovely flowers. I cannot thank you enough for fulfilling my flower addiction. I am also proud to say that I have successfully infected people around me with the “bulb flu!”
Mary Riley – Ladybug Acres
At Ladybug Acres, spring is a magical time, a season that transforms our little farm into a vibrant tapestry of colors and scents. The arrival of blooming daffodils, grape muscari, leucojum and other bulbs from Brent and Becky’s marks the beginning of this enchanting period. Each year, as winter fades away, my husband Lyle and I eagerly anticipate the moment when these bulbs burst from the earth painting our farm in cheerful shades of yellow, white and purple. The first signs of spring are always an exciting time for me. As the crocus bulbs begin to pop beside our driveway, I take comfort knowing spring can’t be too far away.
Early in our marriage, Lyle and I dreamed of leaving city life and finding a farm where we could raise animals and grow flowers; a place family and friends could experience the simple joys of country life-whether gathering fresh eggs, petting goats or picking bouquets of flowers.
As the days grow warmer with the sun shining brighter, our apple and pear trees begin to bud sheltering the bulbs planted underneath like a large beach umbrella. Our little orchard is alive with color and movement from gentle breezes and bees whizzing around. The spring bulbs create a stunning display as they welcome guests to our farm.
One of my favorite activities takes place in our little orchard amid dozens of flowering bulbs. At Easter, my family gathers for a picnic and egg hunt, a fun event that brings together generations. With baskets in their hands, my great nieces and nephews run between the trees, laughing and squealing as they search high and low for hidden treasures. They peek behind the vibrant flowers, in the branches of the trees, and in the grass, hoping to find that special golden egg.
The spring bulbs create a whimsical backdrop for our festivities, their colors reflecting the joy and energy of the day. As the children “crack open” their eggs, we adults watch and laugh sharing memories that have shaped our family. The flowers enhance the magic of the moment, reminding us to stop and celebrate the beauty of ordinary life.
As the sun sets on our Easter celebrations, Ladybug Acres glows with the warmth of family and the beauty of nature. The daffodils stand as a testament to the love and care we pour into our farm. They are more than just flowers; they are a legacy of our family’s bond, a reminder of the joy we find in each other’s company, and the beauty that surrounds us.
In the years to come, I know that my bulbs from Brent and Becky’s will continue to play a significant role in our lives. They will bloom again and again, bringing new memories, laughter, and love to Ladybug Acres, where the beauty of nature and family intertwine in perfect harmony.
