Author Archives: Cindy

Peonies By: Brent, Co-Owner, Brent & Becky’s Bulbs Show-stopping blooms that are always sure to steal the spotlight in a garden, peonies are spring- and summer-blooming classics beloved for centuries and continued today. Their layers upon layers of petals captivate us and draw us in, making them an understandable staple in gardens across the globe […]

Buying Bulbs Online By: Jay, Grin-eral Manager, Brent & Becky’s Bulbs As any gardener knows, selecting the right bulbs is something that just can’t be done from sight alone. You need to touch them and feel them to be sure that you’re getting top-performers for your garden this year. And knowing this, how can it […]

How to Make Dahlias Last Longer By: Brent, Co-Owner, Brent & Becky’s Bulbs It’s hard not to love dahlias. They’re incredibly beautiful and unique, not to mention they come in every color of the rainbow – even blue! They’re just one of those flowers that we simply can’t get enough of, and we love including […]

  As captivating as they are, it’s no wonder we’d all want more daffodils in our yards. They’re beautiful, come in a wide array of colors, and are pest-proof! However, is the only way to get more of these fabulous flowers by buying more bulbs to plant? Or do daffodils spread all on their own? […]

  Mulching might not be as fun or colorful of a topic as our favorite bulbs and blooms, but it’s an important tool to make sure that our gardens are looking their best, full of healthy plants and bulbs that are given their ideal conditions to shine! Mulching has tons of advantages and is as […]

  Undeniably one of the summer’s most outstanding plants, gladiolus – sometimes called the sword lily for its sensational sword-like leaves – has tall sword-like leaves coated with big, beautiful flowers. More commonly known as glads, they come in a wide variety of colors and sizes, so finding the fit that is just right for […]

  With large, showy blooms famous for their trumpet shapes and a dazzling array of colors, lilies are some of the most iconic flowers found in our gardens. Not to mention, they’re also some of the most diverse, with varieties of all shapes, colors, and sizes to fit any aesthetic.   How to Plant Lilies […]

With some of the most intricate, long-lasting, and downright iconic blooms to be found in any garden, dahlias are undoubtedly one of our favorite flowers. They are simple to plant, easy to care for, and make stunning additions to arrangements, where they can easily outlast all other blooms. The only thing that could possibly make them even more attractive to us would be if they brought bounties of equally beautiful butterflies into our yards, too.

While they may not be my favorite plants, dahlias are certainly pretty high on the list, right behind daffodils, lilies, and chamillias. They’re undeniably beautiful, they’re great for sharing, and they come in a rainbow of colors – of course, with the exception of blue, like tulips. They’re also fairly easy to care for, making them an excellent addition for any spring garden.

After a long, harsh winter, there are very few things we look forward to more than the first signs of fresh life poking through our soil in spring. These jolly green sprouts usher in the warmer temperatures, and continue to do so throughout the season, in the depths of summer heat, right up until the arrival of autumn. However, in order to put on their spectacular season-long show, their planting must be as well-timed as the punchline of a joke.

Kniphofias, commonly known as Red Hot Pokers or Torch Lilies, certainly live up to their name as one hot flower – flying off shelves faster than slices of hot apple pie. It’s no wonder, though – with plumes of bright, fiery hues of red, orange, and yellow, they almost seem as though they’re really torches set aflame in the garden. Plus, it’s not just our eyes that love them, they’re also a big hit with the hummingbirds, which are always welcome in our gardens!

Hyacinths are popular over-the-winter blooms for an impressive list of reasons – they offer delightful color in the middle of a dreary winter season, they fill our homes with an intoxicating fragrance, and they are gorgeous blooming bulbs that are simple to force indoors for a touch of spring when we most need it.

But once you’ve brought your hyacinth inside and been rewarded with their fun display, they still need a little bit of TLC in order to survive to keep blooming in seasons to come. Thankfully, bulbs planted in soil can easily recycle their nutrients for another year of blooms if you guide them through the process, so it’s surprisingly simple to keep your hyacinth happy! However, if you’ve forced bulbs using only water, you may want to toss those in the compost pile, as they won’t have enough nutrients reserved to bloom again. Hyacinth blooms might be gorgeous, but they don’t exactly need extensive pampering to make it to the warmer spring weather.

If we were to ask you to describe us, we’d bet the first thing you’d think of would be “the bulb people”. It’s our hobby, it’s our job, and it’s our passion. Bulbs are a part of our everyday lives and if you love them as much as we do, then you’ll love these amazing resources we’ve found over the years that fuel our inspiration.

With the Christmas season finally in full swing, we find our homes filled to the brim with shades of green, red, and white, and the plants that we nurture at home are no exception. We’re excitedly bringing home all the holidays hues home to enjoy, from fresh Christmas trees full of that seasonal aroma to brightly colored blooms in our poinsettias and Christmas cacti. Before you bring home all your holiday favorites to enjoy from the comfort of your cozy home, though, there are some important facts about the risks that come with some of these seasonal plants.

Here on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, we are in a prime location when it comes to birds. We happen to be right along the Atlantic Flyway, which, every year, thousands of birds use to migrate south for the winter. As they come down, they concentrate right here on the bay, filling our communities with hundreds of species of birds of all shapes and sizes. In fact, over 400 different species have been catalogued in our region alone!

Forcing Bulbs Indoors By: Brent, Co-Owner, Brent & Becky’s Bulbs How to Force Bulbs Indoors How to Cool Bulbs for Forcing Indoors Growing Bulbs Indoors How to Keep Your Bulbs From Getting Too Tall Best Bulbs for Forcing Indoors Some of our favorite plants in the gardening world are those started from bulbs. With brilliant […]

Hippeastrum By: Brent and Becky How to Grow Hippeastrum Hippeastrums for the Holidays In the world of Christmas gifting with plants, few flowers are quite as beloved as heavenly hippeastrums. Known for their unbelievably beautiful, star-shaped blooms that come in a rainbow of beautiful colors and patterns, they brilliantly burst into life when the weather […]

With bulbs appearing in stores earlier and earlier each year, many of us can’t help feeling swept up in the need to plant earlier, too. However, for those who have excitedly planted their newly purchased bulbs into the ground in August and even September, they have been sadly disappointed by a bare garden in spring.

Nothing quite captures fall like the perfectly ripe crispness of an apple. That freshly-picked flavor that fills you with juicy sweetness is unlike any other and autumn is when their season shines. For the best apples throughout the season, there are a few things you’ll want to know to get the most out of your harvest.

We’re lucky to live in a more southern climate where Winter weather is still months away. Some of you might be looking ahead to the approach of Fall and Winter, and your Summer is slowly disappearing behind you. To get your garden ready for the impending cooler weather, follow this checklist to ensure everything is in order.

Seeds are at the very core of our gardens. They surround us daily and are the source of life in nature and our own gardens. Most gardeners work with seeds every new growing season, but so many of us don’t take a lot of time to think about how they work. It’s time to look a little deeper into this important player in our gardens.

Daffodils (Spring Narcissus) By: Brent and Becky A Flower by Any Other Name Would Smell as Sweet: The Down-and-Dirty Basics: Matchmaker: Picking the Varieties for You Expert Advice Troubleshooting Greek mythology tells the story of the hunter Narcissus, whose beauty was only outmatched by his vanity. Narcissus was completely infatuated with himself until he fell […]