Welcome to Fedco’s 2022 order of fall-planted flowerbulbs, perennial plants and seed garlic!

Gardening with flowers, like many art forms, involves color, instinct, some coordination, but also a spirit that embraces the unexpected, finds motivation in the disappointments and goes with the flow. The latter is especially important if you are the kind of bulb planter who lingers over the descriptions, carefully places your order, and then doesn’t get the bulbs in the ground until the last minute before the ground freezes. In late fall, we’re tired, we’re cold, we prioritized stacking the wood, harvesting the carrots, winterizing the vehicles, and then—oh crud—the flowerbulbs! We admit, sometimes they get planted in a hurry, and we don’t know what we’ve done until the spring bulbs have sprung.

Referring to errant brushstrokes in landscape painting, Bob Ross liked to say that we don’t make mistakes, we make “happy little accidents.” The same could be said about landscape planting. Maybe your style, like ours, is one never-ending happy accident.

There’s no harm in attempting to plan ahead, yet some of our very favorite interplantings in the garden came from late fall panic planting. Scattered through this catalog are some of the happy accidents and good pairings that came about after we slammed the bulbs into the ground while the snow was beginning to fall.

Like painting over an old canvas, most plants can be dug up, moved, rearranged, complemented next year with something new—or by another series of happy accidents. Spring is always full of wonder, but the joy of discovery is deepened when we’ve forgotten what we planted and where. Just get them in the ground!

—The Fedco Bulbs team