Ordered from B&D Lillies

I am sure I missed lots of pictures but maybe you get the idea. A lot of something looks great in mass even though it may not be as fancy a lilly as the newer patterns. Anyway, thats it for my pictures.

I just love lillies and my garden needed more so I just keep adding.

Oh Wow! Wow, Wow and Wow again. That is pretty spectacular. How long have you been building your gardens? We need sweeping vista pictures, now. :) Very nice, very nice. :) You do all this by yourself? How many square feet of gardens do you have? You do realize your gardens should be photographed for a magazine... Wow.. Very nice. :) Thank you so much for sharing! :)

I have no idea how many square feet of gardens there are here. I can tell you that each year there is less and less lawn. Its all very, very cottage garden.

Different areas are older and newer. That structure for the 4 tier teraces garden was put in the very late fall of 2007. There was nothing in it spring of 2008 and I planted what you see there spring of 2008.

Front yard rose garden over terrace wall is two years old, floribunda section mostly 3 years old. The side rose bed is 4 years old but not really finished until last year as I just kept right on planting.

I have about 200 roses and over three hundred daylilies. Plus lots of fruiting shrubs like many different viburnums (over 30), at least 30 blueberries, about 30 azaleas, lots of shrubs fruits, blackberries, 5 dwarf cherry trees, 5 crabapples, lots of vining honeysuckles, 5 butterfly bushes and lots of betterfly attracting plants and flowers. The list just goes on.

More than seven years since I started planting the shrubs. I had help with the terraced walls as I had no idea how to do that but I planted all the plants here myself. I just kept adding.

Good lord you have more energy than ten people! :) It is really very nice. I seriously do want to see more sweeping shots of the gardens to give it more perspective. You've done a very nice job. :)

Rita, you're a gal after my own heart! Your gardens are fabulous!

And I complain about how many stalks I have to chop at the end of the season. Lol. Your gardens are lovely. Your hard work shows through beautifully ;)

Yeah, that's what I was thinking Mags, I'm not going to complain (except to you and Moby and maybe Steve and Maxine) about how much clean up I have to do each year after viewing Rita's! LOL Oh heck, I'll probably whine to anyone that will listen. :)

By the way, I have lily noses showing up! :) Most specifically Casablanca of all people! Woo Hoo!!

Rita, I really think your gardens are photo worthy for a magazine. :) I really do. :)

I agree that the gardens are fantastic and terraces create a really unique look. Wonderful presentation of lilies, rita!

Thanks, everyone for the compliments. I work from home so I spend a lot of time here and really enjoy my gardens.

My property is multilevel. Much of the backyard is litterally upstairs. Theres a small area with my patio and then a steeply sloped hill which I have neavily planted with mostly shrubs. Steep stairs run up in line with my kitchen door. The other side of the stairs had an old ivey covered retaining wall which was slowely falling down thru the years. I could have just done a new straight wall and put a garden bed at the foot and upstairs. But thats not what I wanted. I wanted something dramatic and multilevel in which I could do a really eye-catching garden.

Well, it looks like you've created your eye popper. :) Again, more pictures please! ;)

Wow! Thanks for sharing your fabulous gardens. I love the look of plants in mass, but just don't have the room for it. You may have to start selling the rest of us lilies when you get ready to divide all those. Hope you have them all labeled.
I especially like the roses and lilies together.

Susan

This message was edited Apr 13, 2009 6:42 AM

No, I don't have them labeled. That was the point of the big mass planting thing. For instance, I have the Tango Lily mix and know the colors in the mix and they are all mixed together. That was the way I wanted it done. I have never labeled my lillies.

Now that I have bought some expensive ones to put in clumps this spring, I will put a label on those groupings.

Rita,

It's so magnificent. What a lovely display.

Donna

I think its like before I got my daylily crazies, I never used to label my daylilies and have afew no IDs. Now of couse, all my daylilies are labeled. Thru the years I just bought lily bulbs locally and planted them. Now that I am going for the expensive fancy lily bulbs, I will mark each clump.

The trenches were for masses of color. I do know what I bought to plant there so I do have an idea of what they are.

I have more pictures showing the lilies but can't find them. But you can see in the pictures that the lilies are mostly very ordinary kinds, except for the Tango lilies, nothing fancy.

Dear modest Newyorkrita,

There is nothing ordinary about the beautiful garden you have put together. I hope you find your pics so you can show us more.

Donna

Oh yeah, more pictures! :) We need more eye candy! :) Please. :)

Rita, that's kinda how I do any time I'm trying a plant; get a few inexpensive ones locally first, see how they perform, then plunge head first into ordering form choice vendors. Always good to know your conditions will provide what they need before investing too much.

Well, I didn't really know about all the choices in the trumpet hybrids and orienpets last year. Not this year either until I started here. All those sites that people pointed out to buy lillies were not to be ignored. At least not by me :-))

Rita...Have you checked out Buggy Crazy (Lisa) yet? She only ships in the fall but her selection is incredible, as is her reputation on Dave's.
It's great that she keeps the fall selections up on her site for reference in the spring when we have no idea what it was we HAD to have when we ordered in the fall. Her bulbs are the cleanest, most pristine I have ever seen from any source. My DH came out into the garage while I was planting her bulbs and said they looked good enough to eat...LOL
http://buggycrazy.vstore.ca/

I have also had exceptional luck with Faraway Flowers (Ramona). She accomodated me last year with early shipping, great communication and her lilies were among my first to bloom. She also was kind enough to provide me with what turned out to be a new favorite, Tiger Woods. I just made the mistake of going to her site to be sure I provided the correct link...and see she has a bunch I NEED...Thankfully, her site says spring ordering is finished, so I am saved....Whew...for now...
http://farawayflowers.vstore.ca/

Meant to attach a pic
Tiger Woods, Star Gazer, Sorbonne, Silk Road in the back...July 5, 08

I just got Eyeliner from Ramona and they were extremely nice bulbs!!!

No, people have referred to Buggy Crazy lilies in other posts but I had no idea what they were talking about. Did not know about the other one either. Will have to see what they offer for fall. I think I am done for this spring. (maybe not)

Thank you for the links.

Chocolatemoose- You have such a pretty yard. Not what I envisioned for zone 1. That didn't sound right :-(( Just that I figgured nothing much grows there in the frozen cold.

Rita...LOL...You are far from the first to make that statement...LOL
I do love my yard, but suffer an extreme case of Zone Envy. It's a lot more work up here because all but the Asiatics get brought in for the winter, along with the dahlias. Dahlias are much more labor intensive for the price so I may not store as many and will just purchase new tubers in the spring. Lilies are my absolute addiction (well, a main one anyway) and are well worth the lessor effort. I do hundreds of lilies/dahlias in pots which get sunk in the ground or moved around the yard/decks. Makes it easier to bring them all in.

I'd love to create the scope and lushness (lushnicity...???) of your yard but since my passions tend toward bulbs, tubers and annuals, that's not likely to happen, so I live vicariously through pictures such as yours. Your gardens are truely living works of art...Please continue to pleasure us with pics throughout the summer!

Once you get to Buggy's and Ramona's Faraway Flowers you'll really be sunk. :) They have some of the most exquisite lilies. :) Seriously yummy! :) :)

I am already sunk. Its drizzeling out and I was walking around the yard earlier figguring placement in my mind of were each type of the new lilies should go.

chocolatemoose- I could never have the dedication to dig up and store things from year to year. If its not easy, I don't bother. Lots of things I forget to lift and many years have to buy new, like my cannas and Gladiola Blubs.

If I have to dig it in the fall, it's probably going to die. By the time fall rolls around I'm so sick of gardening that the last thing I want to do is to dig and store stuff....

Mentioning buggycrazy reminded me of this King Kong bulb I received from her. It was the size of a large cabbage. She seems to have the secret formula for growing them big.

susan

Buggy does have some of the best bulbs around. She really spoils you for other folks.

Chocolatemoose, Thanks for telling me about a supplier, practically in my backyard! LOL You can bet I will be in touch with her shortly.

I don't have my order yet from B&D. I only picked the ship mid April option instead of the ship end of march because march was already over. Now they are trying to entice me to order again because I just got their catalog in todays mail.

Some of the most beautiful lilies in my garden come from them. Sorbonne - a very reliable Oriental.

Donna

I love B&D. I had ocaision to call and they were so nice. Well what do you expect from someone who would stop on the road to rescue a mummy goat and her baby and then keep them after paying the vet bills to get them well. I've yet to meet a person who was really in their hearts good to animals that wasn't good to people as well.

Hurray!! My order from B&D lilies arrived in the mail today. The Red Alerts are about the same size as the JACQULINE bulbs I was just planting from VB Wholesale. The BONBINI are smaller, plus one of the three bulbs is considerably smaller than the others. The TRIUMPHATOR bulbs are bigger and the MY PRECIOUS has one nicely big bulb and two bulbs are monsters by my standards. As big around as my hands, I have never see lily bulbs that big.

So generally very pleased but if I compair my bulbs order from The Lily Garden and B&D, I think that my vote goes to The Lily Garden. Doesn't matter, I am happy enought with both and will surely order again from both in the future.

I figgured might as well plant all the D&B lilies, its not as if I had so many that I couldn't manage. This way they all get started growing so I can see those lovely blooms this summer. Anyways, it's done. They are planted in their new homes in various spots here in my garden.

I have to say that while the quality of D&B is great, I am already spoiled by getting extra bulbs and bonus bulbs when ordering from the Lily Garden.

I got my LG order yesterday and I must say they were extremely generous, with all three varieties having extra bulbs included. I ordered 3, 3 and 9 of three somewhat expensive lilies and got 5, 5 and 10. And the bulbs were larger than what I've experienced from them in the past. Must say I am impressed and very pleased. I normally order from B&D every year, and will have to add LG to that. LG's shipping is super fast, too - bulbs are already at my house and the check has not even cleared yet. I guess I can deal with printing up the order form even though it would be nice to have web ordering ^_^

Steve,

I'm so pleased to hear that. My first pricier liles came from them - Anastasia for one - and I've never received a small or bad bulb. I order from B&D and LG for the most part, although a Wayside sale got me beautiful candidums ($6.00 each!) and Silk Roads (BTW, I saw yesterday that Wayside is selling Silk Road for $7.77 each.

http://www.waysidegardens.com/gardening/PD/7329/

That's where I got mine, plus a bonus from TLG, and the Waysides were spectacular. But I really like to support the other two. I know that they came from LG, but I couldn't tell the difference. I suspect that LG insists upon propoer handling and prompt sales.

Nice to have so many great choices. Now I have to check out Buggy Crazy and Faraway Flowers. I've heard so many good things.

Donna

Donna, once you receive a BuggyCrazy bulb you'll be seriously spoiled. ;) LOL Trust me, it's so true.... Faraway Flowers is great for all the more unique stuff that you usually can't get anywhere else right away. :)

I have already been checking them both out, particularly BuggyCrazy. It is amazing what's available out there! Really opens your eyes (and gets you into trouble!!!)

Trouble seeking Donna