I ordered a turks cap lily collection from ww.dutchbulbs.com last year.
Out of 2 red, 2 yellow, 2 orange, and 1 purple turks cap, I recieved 3 yellow,
1 white, 1 dead, and 2 not large enough to flower.Just felt like airing that here.
-theoneflasehaddock
I hope you wrote/called them, and also let them know you're making their name famous here.
I did email them, about the dead bulb, and another problem at the time of the order, and another time to get them to remove my name from their email list, which they haven't done.
-theoneflasehaddock
I too received Turks' Caps (from a generally reliable US company.) My story has a happier ending. The first lily that bloomed in a grouping of 3 was orange, spotted--but definitely not a Turk's Cap. I called the company and they offered a full refund. I was about to take it when I recalled I still had two lilies to go. I said if the other two were OK, I wouldn't mind having one slightly different. They duly blossomed, last year and this, into turbans as beautiful as anything you will see in the Shah-nameh. I'm sorry to hear you had such a bad experience. My whole three years of gardening on my own has led to this conclusion: buy as local as possible, and buy from specialists--people who offer only bulbs, only day lilies, etc. It seems to bring better results, and they usually include quite detailed information on how to get the best results.
Leslie zemedelec
I mostly lurk here, but I have a rather amusing story about flowers being mislabeled or misrepresented......
My son was murdered on November 20th, 1999. To honor him I created a garden in his honor. I planted it in the symbol for the bleeding heart which is an inside circle of red, bordered with white. I have kept myself busy finding plants that bloomed red and white. The first year, I ordered 12 white day lilies. In the online picture they appeared pure white, but when they bloomed they were a cream color...... I bought white irises, which were mislabeled and bloomed white with purple tips. I bought white petunias which half of them bloomed purple. I planted white roses, which last year on Mother's Day, bloomed with red flowers. (They had always bloomed white in past years, but bloomed with several red roses on two different bushes last year on Mother's Day.) This year two orange day lilies of a completely different kind bloomed in with the cream colored ones.
I have decided that this is a sign from heaven that my son wants a little color in his garden, and perhaps he wants his mother's heart to stop bleeding........... but that will never happen.
Carol
What a touching story! I hope your garden gives you some comfort.
"Chip's Mom" expounded:
I'm so sorry for your loss, Carol, I can't imagine the pain.
oops, hate it when the send button interrupts the message
I bought 2 Non-Stop tuberous begonias "in flower" this spring for window boxes on the road-facing side of my house. They were identically labeled, "Salmon", of the same size ( well grown in 4" pots") and the bloom in the greenhouse was identical.
Now that they have grown on in the window-boxes, it is painfully obvious that one was an upright and one a pendant, and the flower form in each plant is double and Salmon but the shading is different between the 2 plants.
So I have a snaggle-tooth look on the road-side this summer, my planned boxes have gone their own ways, the green-house owner has commented that "something must have happened amiss somewhere" and I can only agree.
Thats OK, its not terminal.... I propagated some of that brilliant shimmering orange long-tubular-flowered fuschia from which I lost the tags. Next week those puppies will be in bloom enough to replace the SNAFU Non-Stops. I also rooted some of the lime green ornamental sweet-potato ( darn, lost those tags a few years ago), and have a huge cascading potful of a sweet heart-leaf ivy with a gold center . Yeah, that one had a Patent Tag at some time in its life, too.
In a broad brush, thats my take on labeling/patent protection in the greenhouse trade. Since no retailer can absolutely guarantee the right label on the right plant, I ( client) ignore dire warnings against propagating things I adore. I'm not selling my clones, I'm just a consumer... and done this long enough to know that you can spend a bundle every spring on JUST what you want, only to have a SNAFU in the height of growing season when replacement or refund isn't a viable option.
It truly is not terminal Ask my Orange Oriental Poppies ( who were supposed to be mixed white and pink). If their bloom threatens to overlap with the Red Peony instead of the Lemon Daylily, I'll go cut their throats. No seed pods, life goes on.
One truly doesn't garden by dollars, even though we all spend to the tune.
Hugs in color ( and leaving quickly to watch lightning)
sue in Western Maine
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