Dutch Gardens Catalog – Reminiscing and a Review
When we moved to this house with something over an acre of land from a 1/3 acre lot I was daunted by landscaping issues and by feeling somewhat house poor. I spent $200 on 3 kinds of tulips and felt I had done my duty to the land. Imagine my surprise when most of the blooming tulips were mowed down by deer and most were never seen again.
I visited the Chicago Botanic Garden for advice and was aimed at daffodils for reasons you know. I dutifully ordered 10 varieties from the Dutch Gardens catalog, tilled a big bed, and waited for spring.
They performed well and some of them and perhaps their descendants are still hanging around here. Moreover, I have divided and subdivided and shared them with friends over the years.
Thus, I always have had a soft spot in my heart for this slick and colorful catalog though I can’t recall ever ordering from them again. ( discovered the Midwest Daffodil Society sale for many of my next purchases. This year I am in charge of the sale on October 20-21. I’m also the President and looking for a successor.
This week the Dutch Gardens catalog arrived. Here’s a commentary on what I found there. I like to do this for other catalogs and for the big box stores and garden centers to share with local daffy enthusiasts and to help price bulbs for our sale.
The tulips shown in their 57 pages are drop dead gorgeous. I’m impressed by the color in this catalog, but it’s a little suspect. I doubt that these flowers, while beautiful, would color up like this in my yard.
There are only about 25 pages devoted to daffodils beginning with a page of general descriptions and planting and caring instructions. No mention of the divisions here, nor pointing to Wisters, Pannills, nor the ADS but some are marked “Award Winners.”
But there are some good ones on following pages. I found Dutch Master, Mount Hood, Flower Record, Salome, Jetfire, and Thalia from that first order. There are a number of big showy and not necessarily show flowers: Fortissimo, Tropical Sunset, a1 W-O, Extravaganza, Madison, Snowball, Apricot Whirl, Ferris Wheel, Juanit, Honkey, Galactic Star, and Double Campernelle. These will all impress gardeners and lookers unfamiliar with the better show flowers and might fall into a good collection or a historic ribbon. But I can’t trust the color shown for Replete, and Decoy and these make me suspicious of some of the other photos. None of the photos of Replete, a Murray Evans 1975 registration, are as rosy pink as shown here and are generally more orange. And, almost the same is true about Decoy (Mitsch 1979) a 2 W-R that I haven’t grown but might want to try after seeing the Dutch Gardens pic. Suzy is another one that I might try now. I guess that’s the goal of perfect (or doctored) photos in a catalog.
After I wrote this I looked at the Dutch Gardens website to see where they are located now. It is stated there that bulbs are shipped direct from the Netherlands. At the bottom of the last page under “About Us” is a link to “Meet a Grower”. This is an interesting list of Dutch growers with personal statements and intriguing names. There I saw this: “Jan Pennings” Meet the man who recognized the qualities of the Replete daffodil.” Oops! Maybe I’d better make a retraction of the previous paragraph.
I don’t know Honkey, which is marked as new. Daffseek calls it the same as Virginia Sunrise but all those photos show a flatter and less ruffled cup. Becky, Kirby, Jason: what do you think?
There are some really fine selections here, as well, some which might have been hard to get when I made that first order years ago. I grow or have grown all of these and liked, even loved, some of them: Quail, Geranium, Minnow, Falconet, Intrigue AND Hillstar, Pencrebar, Tete-Ä- Tete, of course, Rapture, Dreamlight, Chromacolor, and Ceylon. Again, no mention of the Wisters here, but that’s a pretty good list for your neighbor who is not knowledgeable and doesn’t care.
There is a page devoted to “yellow jonquils”, otherwise unnamed, with an emphasis on naturalizing. There are a couple of pages devoted to mixed collections – deluxe, doubles, naturalizing, and collections in “estate quantities” in the back pages – Dutch Master, Thalia, Quail, and an unnamed mix.
These prices didn’t seem to be bargains. I know that costs are up in the bulb industry, but some of these prices are a little off-putting. Chromacolor and Ceylon are over $3/bulb and Dreamlight is almost $4. Fortissimo is almost $2. Jetfire is about a dollar and Thalia is over $2 and well over $1.50 in estate quantities! I guess that fancy catalog adds to the sales price. You can do better in other catalogs, online, and certainly in the big box stores for some of these. Last year I found bargains in packages marked with a Martha Stewart label, Katie Heath, for one.
The rest of the catalog also has gorgeous photos, now of other spring bulbs, iris, peonies, lilies, amaryllis and a miscellany. I forced myself to close the catalog before studying this part too closely so that I wouldn’t start a lengthy want list. I can be charmed by a pretty face, even if it’s been helped by Photoshop.
If you don’t receive the Dutch Gardens catalog, consider putting one on your shelf for reference and for relief browsing during the midwinter blahs.
‘Honkey’ was the original registered name for this daffodil, which was changed (I believe) by Brent and Becky Heath to ‘Virginia Sunrise’; they are one and the same flower. It has been in US commerce for a while now, about ten years (maybe longer?), though not consistently from year to year. I haven’t checked Dutch Gardens’ photo, but it’s likely a simple stock photo, or perhaps one of a different flower altogether.
‘Honkey’ is a great, strong variety with richly colored and often exuberantly ruffled coronas with folds and pleats, depending on the season. Once the bulbs have been in the ground for a while, it will certainly smooth out, and the cups can be a little less exaggerated and flatter. I love it, and would highly recommend it for your garden, George.
I’ve bought from Dutch Gardens for many years, and have always been impressed by their packaging and bulbs, even if they are mostly generic varieties. Some years they offer some rather novel items that no one else carries.
Jason
Jason A. Delaney | North Gardens Supervisor and Bulb Collections Specialist | Department of Horticulture | Missouri Botanical Garden