Bulb Alert, Hot Plant Alert, Rare Plant Alert, Mail Order Alert
Crocus
Hello Fellow Gardeners,
In this Alert we present to you the wonderful world of Crocus and highlight our various spring- and fall-flowering species and cultivars. Crocus are easy to grow, long-lived and beautiful. They should be in every garden. Enjoy the article below.

Below you'll also find info on our Great Rose Pre-Order for pick-up or shipping in spring 2022 with 70 different roses. And our new Fall Citrus & Rare Fruit Pre-Order.

And you'll discover our full Rare Spring Bulbs and Bare Root pre-order on now for pick-up or shipping this fall.

And don't forget: If you're a local person, now is a great time to come visit the nursery. The whole place looks like a giant garden filled with colour.

See you soon in person or online!

Cheers, Gary and the Phoenicians
Fall Citrus & Rare Fruit Pre-Order
Our most popular Citrus plus many other rare and unusual fruit trees and shrubs
Phoenix
Perennials is Hiring

We are looking for a knowledgeable gardener who loves people and office work. We need someone to work full time answering the phone and emails, and doing data entry and other office and customer service tasks.

If this sounds intriguing to you or might be of interest to someone you know, please be in touch.
Open Seven Days a Week, 10am-5pm
February 26th-November 15th, 2021
Pre-Order and Mail Order Updates

Thank you to everyone who pre-ordered or placed a mail order this year. We have now shipped all pre-orders and mail order in our system. Thank you for your patience while you waited for your shipments.

Mail Orders - All orders have been shipped except for orders we have recently received. We'll be taking our regular break for August to reset for fall. Any orders received after July 31st will ship in September.

Formosa Lady's Slipper Orchids - Pick-ups postponed until the fall. A detailed email has been sent.

Citrus and Avocado - Pick-ups are all ready. Shipping is completed.

Succulent Situation - Launched! Succulents available now online or at the nursery.
Upcoming Garden and Botanical Tours

With the end of Covid in sight, we are working on new dates and tours. Here's your up to date information.

Gardens of Ireland
Sold Out! Waiting List Open
Main Tour: June 24th-July 4th, 2022
Optional Northern Ireland Extension: July 4th-7th, 2022

Gardens of the Impressionists and the Loire
Late June/Early July 2023
Tour itinerary is currently being developed. For now, you can email World Wide Quest at [email protected] to get on the list for more information once it is released.

South Africa: The Cape Floristic Province 
and the Bulb Capital of the World
New Date! Fall 2024

To receive information on these tours once the itineraries and details are ready, please email Worldwide Quest at [email protected]. Mention the name of the tour and the tour guide, Gary Lewis.
Plants to the People!
Pick-Up, Courier, Freight, and Mail Order Shipping Services
Workshops 2021 Postponed Until Further Notice
Click the New Plants link in the Specialized Searches Section.
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Help Us Spread the Word
In order for Phoenix Perennials to continue doing everything we do, including bringing you a candy store of delectable plants, we need to keep reaching new people. Please forward this email to your gardening friends and family. Better yet, bring them with you on a trip to Phoenix Perennials! We also do mail order so please help us spread the word across Canada! Thanks so much for your help! 
Update Your E-Newsletter & Alert Subscriptions
You can manage your subscriptions to our E-Newsletter and Alerts at any time by clicking on the "Update Profile" link at the bottom of every E-News or Alert. The E-Newsletter comes out twice a month. The 18 different Alerts come out occasionally only when we have something exciting to tell you. Perhaps you have FOMOOP ("Fear of Missing Out On Plants") and want to get every digital communication. Or perhaps you have a really busy life and your main loves are Edibles and Succulents. No need to totally unsubscribe from everything. In this case, you can just sign up for those two Alerts. Our system is flexible and you can change your preferences any time you want. Here are the different Alerts for you to consider:
  • Bulb Alert
  • Christmas Alert
  • Clematis and Cool Vines Alert
  • Edible Alert
  • Fragrance Alert
  • Hardy Subtropical Alert
  • Hellebore Alert
  • Hot Plant Alert
  • NEW! Houseplant Alert
  • Kids Alert
  • Made in the Shade Alert
  • Mail Order Alert
  • Maple and Cool "Woodies" Alert
  • Native Plant Alert
  • Rare Plant Alert
  • NEW! Rose Alert
  • Sales & Special Offers Alert
  • Small Space Alert
  • Succulent Alert
In this Issue
  1. Crocus
  2. Allium
  3. Erythronium
  4. Broken Tulips
  5. The Great Rose Pre-Order 2022
  6. Rare Spring Bulbs, Bare Root and Cypripedium
  7. Fall Citrus & Rare Fruit Pre-Order
Crocus
Everyone’s Favourite Early Spring Bulb

Crocus are the temperate world’s favourite early spring bulb. They are beautiful and long-lived but also tough as nails with an amazing ability to shrug off the vagaries of early spring weather. They often come up through the snow or cheerfully commence their bloom only to be hit by an Arctic blast. Yet, these are not shrinking violets. They just bide their time, wait for the cold to be over, and then get right on with blooming!
Crocus is an old world genus occurring from central and southern Europe and North Africa through the Middle East all the way to western China. It includes about 90 species which can occur from sea level up to alpine habitats.

Crocus can be spring- or fall-blooming. Most of the species we carry are spring-blooming and offer many beautiful forms in a variety of cheerful colours and bicolours to grace the spring garden.
This year we are pleased to offer a number of fall-blooming species for the first time. They join a perennial favourite at the nursery: the autumn flowering Crocus sativus which usually blooms in September. It is widely celebrated as the source of saffron, a natural food flavouring and colourant used in the cuisines of Europe, the Middle East, and India, especially in rice dishes like paella, risotto, bouillabaisse, and biryani. It is the stigmas of the saffron crocus that are harvested. They are considered to be the most expensive spice by weight as it takes the stigmas of between 50,000-75,000 crocus bulbs to produce one pound of saffron!
Crocus love full sun but they are tolerant of part sun to part shade. They can be grown beneath deciduous shrubs and trees that allow them to bask in the full spring sun until the foliage above them leafs out later in the spring and casts some shade.

Crocus prefer evenly moist, well-drained soils and do very well in containers and garden beds. In containers they will poke out amongst your other perennials and shrubs. In garden beds they can be planted in between later emerging perennials or beneath ground covers through which they can grow.

Crocus can also be mass planted in lawns to layer in beautiful spring colour across those wide green expanses where you don't usually expect to see colour. They will grow and bloom before your grass needs to be cut. Hold off as long as you can in the spring before your first grass mowing to allow the Crocus foliage to keep photosynthesizing. However, even after you have cut your grass and trimmed the tips off the Crocus foliage, they will still be there looking very much like grass blades and helping to build up strength for next year's bloom!
New This Year

New fall-flowering Crocus: (clockwise from top left) Crocus zonatus, Crocus ochroleucus, Crocus speciosus, Crocus cartwrightianus 'Albus', Crocus laevigatus 'Fontenayi', Crocus goulimyi, Crocus cartwrightianus, and Crocus speciosus 'Albus'.
New spring-flowering Crocus: (clockwise from top left) Crocus angustifolius, Crocus corsicus, Crocus sieberi 'Ronald Ginns', Crocus malyi.
This year at Phoenix Perennials we are pleased to carry 36 different rare species and cultivars to adorn your pots, patios and gardens.
The Spheres and Fireworks of Allium
No One Should Live Without Ornamental Onions

Last year I brought home bulbs of all of the large-flowering ornamental onions we had available as part of our rare bulb offerings. I was amazed when they all bloomed in spring. Their huge spheres in shades of purple, magenta, lavender, and white seemed to float above the garden like floral balloons. I’ve always loved Allium but this past spring has convinced me that I really could not live without them. And nor should you!

Ornamental onions are best-known for the species and hybrids which form large spheres that can be 3-6 inches across. The best of the commonly available cultivars is ‘Globemaster’ but there is a wealth of other large-flowered cultivars in a variety of shades that are equally, if not more, stunning including ‘Ambassador’, ‘Gladiator’, ‘Lucy Ball’, ‘Ping Pong’, and ‘Pinball Wizard’.

There are also Allium with even bigger spheres such as A. cristophii, A. schubertii and the hybrid ‘Spider’ with firework-like heads up to 8-12 or more inches across!
There are also Allium that form half spheres like A. nigrum and ‘Miami’, Allium that form small spheres or egg-shaped heads like the blue A. caesium, A. sphaerocephalon, and ‘Red Mohican’, Allium forming small fireworks like A. pulchellum ssp. carinatum and A. flavum, Allium with dramatic, broad architectural foliage and large heads like ‘Ostara’, A. nevskianum, and A. karataviense ssp. henrikki, and cute little Allium with small clusters of flowers like A. moly and the shade-loving A. ursinum. All of these various forms offer shades of magenta, purple, lavender, blue, white, and yellow.
Ornamental onions can be grown by the majority of Canadians from coast to coast. Most of them prefer full to part sun in average to rich, free-draining soils. They are mostly considered hardy to zone 4 (with some officially hardy to zone 3) though gardeners in zone 3 and even zone 2 have successfully overwintered Allium with mulching and good snow cover in protected microclimates. They are also disease resistant, bug resistant, and deer resistant!

We are very pleased to offer 48 different species and cultivars of Allium bulbs this fall (plus 12 different kinds of the culinary relatives, Allium sativum, or garlic). Select pick-up or shipping to anywhere in Canada.
Erythronium
Elegance for the Shade Garden

Erythronium is a genus of shady bulbs from North America and Eurasia that form beautiful carpets of ephemeral spring flowers on the forest floors of their native regions. They are known as fawn lilies, trout lilies, and dogtooth violets. They have lush foliage that is often mottled with burgundy and beautiful, delicate, nodding, lily-like flowers in shades of white, yellow, or pink.
We often have our two BC native species, E. revolutum and E. oreganum, available in our native plant section each spring. In fall we offer various other options including a yellow hybrid, a species from northern California, and numerous cultivars from the dogtooth violet native to Europe. Though this year we are excited to also have a rare form of our native E. revolutum available: 'Kinfaun's Pink'.

Erythronium enjoy rich, evenly moist soils in the shade garden. They emerge, bloom, and then go dormant all from early spring to mid spring making them perfect for planting around hosta, hellebores, ferns, and other later emerging shade perennials. Erythronium will put on a beautiful show and then go dormant just in time for other plants to come up and do their thing.

You can also plant them under deciduous trees and shrubs where they can bask and bloom in the spring sunlight and then go dormant just as the leaves above them begin to unfurl. Many people see their short season as a drawback but used in these creative ways, Erythronium can be a valuable bulb for layering extra colour into existing areas of the garden.

Erythronium are easy to grow. Just make sure you plant them right away. They do not like to be out of soil for too long.
New this Year!
Erythronium revolutum 'Kinfauns Pink' has beautiful mottled foliage topped with numerous pale pink, lily-like flowers in spring. Very special. Plant in a woodland setting or shade border with moisture retentive, fertile soil. Erythroniums will go dormant before summer so plant them near late-emerging perennials like hostas and toadlilies. Dry bulbs should be planted ASAP as viability out of soil is not long. Estimates of zone hardiness vary but various sources suggest zone 4. Mulch well in colder zones.
Broken Tulips
Grow the Fabled Bulbs that Inspired Tulipmania
Tulips were introduced to Europe in the mid to late 1500s. The bold shapes and colours of tulips were unlike any other flowers available in Europe at the time. They quickly caught the attention of botanists, horticulturalists, and, often wealthy, appreciators of plants and beautiful things.

The forms first introduced to Europe would have been botanical species from Turkey and Eurasia that arrived in and around the late 16th century. They soon became de rigeur and a sign of status in households both rich and poor. Botanists and horticulturalists began to hybridize them creating more and more exciting forms. By late 1636 and early 1637 ‘Tulipmania’ was at its peak in Holland. The bulbs were so popular that the most desirable varieties could cost more than a house in Amsterdam at the time!

The tulip craze lead to a huge speculative market in tulips, one in which ordinary men clamoured to participate because of the vast amounts of money being made. They sold their businesses, family houses, farm animals, home furnishings and dowries in order to buy bulbs that they had never seen.

Eventually, supply increased and the price of tulips plummeted. The “Tulip Crash” sent many people into bankruptcy. Others lost all of their savings. All because of the tulip. The Dutch government then introduced special trading restrictions in order to avoid further fits of uncontrollable plant lust on the part of its population.

The chief stars/culprits of the Dutch Tulipmania of the 1600s and the focus of so much speculation and desire were the Broken Tulips. These rare forms possessed unique feathers, flares, striping and spots with every flower being different. Yet horticulturalists couldn’t figure out how to propagate and breed these varieties. The broken forms were difficult and perplexing but also highly desired. It was not discovered until the 1920s that these exquisite patterns were due to the presence of tulip breaking virus – a virus that is present today in all regions where tulips are grown – which caused the pigmentation on an otherwise solid-coloured tulip to break into the patterns so desired by collectors. In most cases this virus also caused a bulb to lose vigour over time and to eventually fizzle out.

However, in historic varieties that are still cultivated, the virus causes the colour breaking but is otherwise benign not causing any other ill effects on the bulb. The varieties of Broken Tulips that we usually offer – ‘Absalon’, ‘Black and White’, ‘Insulinde’, ‘Columbine’, ‘Mabel’, ‘The Lizard’, and others – likely all contain the tulip breaking virus but are strong and long-lived bulbs. ‘Inner Wheel’ is a modern Rembrandt Tulip in the style of a Broken Tulip and does not contain the virus.

Importantly, these Broken Tulips do not pose a risk to other bulbs or plants in the garden. Our bulbs are grown at the Hortus Bulborum in the Netherlands alongside more than 4000 different heirloom tulips and other bulbs.

Older tulip varieties tend to have more staying power than recent Dutch hybrids which only seem to remain strong for a few years before losing vigour. You should be able to maintain these Historic Tulips for many years to come in your garden but here are some important tips:
  1. Grow them in full sun in well-drained soil in the garden or in containers.
  2. Give them their space so they are not overrun by perennials or shaded by shrubs.
  3. Remove spent flowers after flowering to avoid energy being put into seed production.
  4. Fertilize when in growth with bulb food or slow release fertilizer sprinkled on the surface of the soil and worked into the top inch.
  5. Allow the foliage to remain as long as the leaves are green to achieve maximum time for photosynthesis and for restoring the energy in the bulb. Only once the leaves have turned yellow should they be removed.
  6. Allow bulbs to rest in the soil over summer undisturbed and with not too much soil moisture. A hot, baking period is fine and often desired by tulips. They will be biding their time underground until they emerge in spring to amaze and delight you once again.

This year we are proud to offer nine different types of Broken Tulips for pick-up or shipping this fall. Click the link to explore our Broken Tulips.
The Great Rose Pre-Order 2022
70 Amazing Roses for your Garden

We are very excited to launch a large and diverse selection of roses for 2022. We have combined our David Austin and Select Roses pre-orders into one large pre-order that will include our full rose selection for 2022. This summer we are launching our main selection but more roses will be added. Weeks tree roses will be added this fall and more David Austin roses will be launched this fall/winter once our orders are confirmed.

We are pleased to let you know that we have secured new growers that should ensure a more reliable supply of roses compared with 2021 and we have gained extra assurances from our previous rose suppliers of a more secure supply going forward. We hope that from 2022 onwards we will not see the shortages and disappointment that we all experienced in 2021.
Rare Spring Bulbs, Bare Root and Cypripedium
Order Now for Fall Shipping or Pick-Up!

We are very excited to launch our fall line up of rare and conventional bulbs, bare root peony and poppies, and Cypripedium lady's slipper orchids for fall shipping or pick-up. This year our selection is larger than ever. We have:

452 Different Bulbs
51 Different Cypripedium
26 Different Peonies
13 Different Poppies

Click on the photos below to start browsing.
Peruse our 452 different rare and conventional bulbs!
Marvel at the beauty of 51 different lady's slipper orchids.
Choose from the giant blooms of 26 different peonies.
Be enchanted by the elegance of 13 different poppies.
Pick-up or shipping will occur in late September to late October. The minimum to place an order is $40. Note that rare bulbs arrive later than conventional ones so most orders will be ready for pick-up or shipping in October. Cold climate gardeners should prepare for this. You can pre-dig holes and mulch plantings well. Or you can plant in pots and protect in a less freezing location for the first winter.

Local Customers: Choose "pick up" when you check out. We will email you when it is time to come in. Please add our email address [email protected] to your address book to help our email get past your spam filters. We recommend against placing orders for potted plants from other sections. Most plants should be available now for in-person shopping.

Mail Order Customers: We ship orders once they are complete yet different types of plants are ready at different times. If you place an order combining different groups of plants, we will generally wait until your order is complete to ship. This could mean that the perennials you ordered won't ship to you for mid September planting as we are waiting for the amaryllis in your order to arrive in mid October before shipping everything together. If you don't want plants to be held up, please place separate orders for different groups of plants or put a note on your order to ship different groups of plants when they come ready. Either option will increase the shipping costs but will get plants to you faster and perhaps at better, earlier planting times, especially if you are a cold climate gardener. Potted perennials and shrubs begin shipping at the start of September. Most bulbs ship from September 20th to October 20th though the following bulbs and bare root usually do not ship until mid October: Cyclamen, Cypripedium, Eremurus, Galanthus, Gladiolus, Hippeastrum (Amaryllis), Lilium, Paeonia, and Papaver. In general, rare bulbs always arrive later than conventional ones so just because you see conventional bulbs in your local stores, does not mean that our rare ones would be in yet and ready to ship.

New Flat Rate Shipping for Bulbs
Flat rate shipping applies to orders that include packaged bulbs and bare root only. When you order, our system will still calculate a quoted rate. However, just before we ship we will manually apply the flat rate. Please refer to the table on our mail order site.

Have fun!
Fall Citrus & Rare Fruit Pre-Order
Choose from 12 of our most popular Citrus including Yuzu, Sudachi, and Owari plus many other rare and unusual fruit trees and shrubs
We are pleased to announce that we have been able to acquire a selection of many of our most popular Citrus varieties for pick-up or shipping this fall. These are joined by many other rare and intriguing fruit trees and bushes including paw paws, persimmons, jujubes, mulberries, tea, a pineapple, a passionfruit, pineapple guava, and Japanese and Sechuan peppers!