Bulb Alert | Hot Plant Alert Rare Plant Alert | Mail Order Alert Rare Bulb Highlights: Snowdrops & Snowflakes

Hello Fellow Gardeners! There are so many exciting bulbs available for fall shipping or pick-up through our Rare Bulb offerings that we thought we should introduce you to some of the many highlights between now and fall. In this instalment we highlight snowdrops and snowflakes. These wonderful bulbs are the first to bloom in spring and inspire great devotion amongst galanthophiles. Enjoy! If you would like to order, full details on pre-ordering Rare Bulbs as well as Cypripedium Lady's Slipper Orchids are below. Our mail order site is now fully updated with all kinds of crazy and fantastic botanical bulbacious wonders, most of which you won't find anywhere else in Canada. Both local and mail order customers can place orders there for pick-up or shipping in the fall. Cheers, Gary and the Phoenicians

Tulipa acuminata has narrow, wild, twisting yellow petals tipped with scarlet as if in flame. It's available as part of our Rare Bulb offerings and is hardy to zone 3!

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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!

Rare Bulb Highlights Snowdrops and Snowflakes

We are very excited to offer for the first time ever a very special selection of rare cultivars of snowdrops ( Galanthus ) and snowflakes ( Leucojum ) from Europe. As some of you may be aware, snowdrops have a cult following in the UK and mainland Europe where aficionados are known as "galanthophiles". You can find them tip toeing around gardens every February and March bending over, getting down on their knees, and even lying on their bellies to enjoy, marvel, and photograph these late winter wonders. As you delve deeper into galanthomania you will discover all of their beautiful subtleties which include differences in the shape and size of the green markings, in flower size and in petal length and width, in stem height and overall plant habit, and also in the number of petals when it comes to the exquisite double forms The snowdrops have cousins called the snowflakes or Leucojum . You might be familiar with the one called L. aestivum or summer snowflake which blooms in late spring or early summer. We are pleased to offer two unusual species known as the spring snowflake ( L. vernuum ) which blooms in early spring and the autumn snowflake ( L. autumnale ) which blooms in fall.  Both the snowdrops and snowflakes are rare and choice bulbs that will grace your garden with pure white flowers accented with green eventually bulking up to form spectacular clumps and drifts in your garden and containers. Here are all of the cultivars we will have this year. If they prove popular on this side of the Atlantic, we will expand our selection in the upcoming years!

Galanthus 'Atkinsii' - Snowdrop - Galanthus 'Atkinsii' is an heirloom cultivar and one of the earliest bloomers with long, narrow outer petals and inner petals marked with an inverted green heart.

Galanthus 'Desdemona' - Snowdrop - Galanthus 'Desdemona' large flowers with broad outer petals surrounding a cluster of up to 20 inner petals with bold inverted heart- or v-shaped green markings.

Galanthus 'Dionysus' - Snowdrop - Galanthus 'Dionysus' is the earliest bloomer of the Greatorex double hybrids with dramatic, ruffled, double flowers.

Galanthus 'Hippolyta' - Snowdrop - Galanthus 'Hippolyta' is one of the last Greatorex doubles to bloom with rounded outer petals often with faint green striping on the tips around a mass of green marked inner petals.

Galanthus 'Magnet' - Snowdrop - Galanthus 'Magnet' has long outer petals surrounding inner petals marked with an inverted v-shaped green spot that sway in the breeze on long pedicels.

Galanthus 'S. Arnott' - Snowdrop - Galanthus 'S. Arnott' is a popular cultivar with large, fragrant flowers on upright stems with cupped outer petals and inner petals with a green inverted "v".

Galanthus 'Straffan' - Snowdrop - Galanthus 'Straffan' is one of the oldest snowdrop cultivars with extra glossy white flowers, two per bulb.

Galanthus elwesii 'Beluga' - Giant Snowdrop - Galanthus 'Beluga' has large, rounded, cupped outer petals and inner petals with a large green mark that looks like a heart with a whale tail on the bottom.

Galanthus elwesii 'Green Brush' - Giant Snowdrop - Galanthus 'Green Brush' has rounded, outer petals with green tips and inner petals that are nearly completely green.

Galanthus elwesii 'Polar Bear' - Giant Snowdrop - Galanthus 'Polar Bear' has rounded, cupped outer petals with small inner petals each with a large green blotch and a smaller inverted "v".

Leucojum (Acis) autumnale 'September Snow' - Autumn Snowflake - Leucojum autumnale 'September Snow' has pure white flowers dangle from burgundy stems in fall.

Leucojum vernum - Spring Snowflake - Leucojum vernum has pure white, pendulous bells with a green ovary and a green spot on each petal in early spring.

Rare Spring Bulbs 265 Superlative Bulbs, Rhizomes, and Corms

Bulbs represent an extraordinary opportunity to layer in extra colour, dynamism, and drama into your perennial borders and containers. They come in a diverse range of colours, shapes, and sizes and there is a bulb for nearly every garden situation. Bulbs are also very easy to care for. Just dig a hole and drop them in. You're done! Now prepare for years of beauty and colour.  We are very excited to offer 265 different rare and unusual bulbs, rhizomes and corms this fall up from 200 last year! There are many new treasures to be discovered!

Visit the Rare Bulb Pre-Order on our Phoenix Perennials Mail Order Site to see our full selection. Both mail order and local customers should place their orders through our mail order system. Local customers should select the pick-up option when checking out. Quantities are limited. Please order early to secure your favourites as many bulbs sold out in advance last year. Our selection of rare bulbs will ship or be ready for pick-up in mid to late September, depending on when they arrive from Europe.  Local Customers : Choose "pick up" when you check out. We will send you an email when it's time to come in. Please place separate orders for bulbs and Cypripedium as this makes administering your orders easier. Please don't place orders for plants. They should all be ready now. You can always call or email first to enquire before you come in. Mail Order Customers : Please do not place orders mixing plants, bulbs or Cypripedium, unless you're placing an order for mixed plants and bulbs after Sept 15 or mixed plants, bulbs, and/or Cypripedium after October 1st. Otherwise, each of these categories will ship separately to arrive to you as fresh as possible for immediate planting and best establishment before winter. In summer and fall, plants are already grown and can't be held for more than a short period. They must ship when orders are placed. Bulbs ship in mid to late September. Cypripedium ship in mid October. If you place an order mixing these categories, we will need to arrange multiple shipments and recalculate your shipping costs. A Note on Shipping Costs : Unlike other mail order nurseries that ship fairly uniform products such as just bulbs or just bulbs and bareroot bagged perennials, we ship a very large range of products in a very large range of sizes. This makes it difficult to tweak our shopping cart system to give proper shipping cost estimates for all types of orders. We have left our system configured to estimate shipments containing plants which is the most costly type of item to ship and the most important for us to get right. However, this means that our system will sometimes over estimate the cost of shipping bulbs and Cypripedium. We will be re-evaluating all shipping costs for bulbs after shipping and adjust your shipping costs downwards should there be a discrepancy. Our goal is only to cover our costs in shipping, not to make money. Thanks for your understanding. Ordering : Visit the Rare Bulb Pre-Order on our Phoenix Perennials Mail Order Site to start shopping! The minimum order value to place a pre-order for mail order or pick-up is $40. Have fun!

Cypripedium Lady's Slipper Orchids 40 Amazing Hybrids and Species

We are excited to offer a diverse selection of hardy lady's slipper orchids for Canadian gardens. The majority of our offerings are Cypripedium hybrids which possess hybrid vigour -- they have inherited the best traits of both parents -- and are much easier to grow than species orchids, have beautiful flowers in amazing colours, and clump up very quickly into amazing displays in the part shade garden. In fact, in optimum conditions they should double in size every year! They come into bloom from late April through June offering an exquisite show in the garden. This year we have added a selection of some of the best and most interesting Cypripedium species. Once you've gotten some practice growing the hybrids these plants are a wonderful way to continue your love affair with lady's slipper orchids. Keep in mind though that species orchids are more exacting in their requirements and that you should do research on how to care for them. Most of our hybrid Cypripedium are "officially" hardy to zone 4 while some are hardy to zone 3 and even zone 2! Even the zone 4 plants may be hardy in protected spots in zone 3 with mulch and good snow cover as we are still learning about the hardiness of the different hybrids. Indeed, we have customers in Alberta and Saskatchewan who are growing these Cypripedium outdoors with great success. We are currently offering 40 different lady's slipper orchids for shipping to our mail order customers and for pick-up at Phoenix by our local customers in mid October 2017. All are top quality, blooming size, many with multiple eyes, and should flower in the spring. Here they are:

Ordering : Visit the Cypripedium Pre-Order to peruse and make your selections. All of our Cypripedium are top quality, blooming-size plants often with multiple eyes sourced from the best growers in Europe and provided to you bare root. October is the best time to buy and plant Cypripedium directly into the ground and the only time we will ship them. The largest rhizomes are selected to fill fall mail orders and pick-up orders. The remaining unsold rhizomes are potted up for spring sales on site at Phoenix. Local Customers : Choose "pick up" when you check out. We will send you an email when it's time to come in. Please place separate orders for bulbs and Cypripedium as this makes administering your orders easier. Please don't place orders for plants. They should all be ready now. You can always call or email first to enquire before you come in.  Mail Order Customers : Please do not place orders mixing plants, bulbs or Cypripedium, unless you're placing an order for mixed plants and bulbs after Sept 15 or mixed plants, bulbs, and/or Cypripedium after October 1st. Otherwise, each of these categories will ship separately to arrive to you as fresh as possible for immediate planting and best establishment before winter. In summer and fall, plants are already grown and can't be held for more than a short period. They must ship when orders are placed. Bulbs ship in mid to late September. Cypripedium ship in mid October. If you place an order mixing these categories, we will need to arrange multiple shipments and recalculate your shipping costs.  A Note on Shipping Costs : Unlike other mail order nurseries that ship fairly uniform products such as just bulbs or just bulbs and bareroot bagged perennials, we ship a very large range of products in a very large range of sizes. This makes it difficult to tweak our shopping cart system to give proper shipping cost estimates for all types of orders. We have left our system configured to estimate shipments containing plants which is the most costly type of item to ship and the most important for us to get right. However, this means that our system will sometimes over estimate the cost of shipping bulbs and Cypripedium. We will be re-evaluating all shipping costs for bulbs and Cyps after shipping and adjust your shipping costs downwards should there be a discrepancy. Our goal is only to cover our costs in shipping, not to make money. Thanks for your understanding.