New record for bulb catalogs

June 2, and already I have a bulb catalog in the mail. A new record! In years past, they started coming about the 4th of July.

It's shrewd of John Scheepers, though. Encourage me to think about my fall bulbs now, before all the tulip foliage has died back, while a few late daffodils still are hanging on in the shade, and I'll remember some spots that were bare of color or disappointing this spring. The catalog may inspire me to do some advance planning. Maybe I'll doodle my dreams in the margins of Scheepers' pages of colorful tulip pictures, and end up ordering from that catalog too. Maybe this year, for once, I'll get organized to order early and capture a discount. This is the year of coupon-clipping, after all.

Every garden retailer is working extra hard for a gardener's dollar this year, not just bulb companies. The nasty economy, combined with cold, rainy spring weather (it rained again today, and tomorrow they are predicting a high of 60), has been tough on garden centers. May is to garden centers what December is to department stores, and if the weekends in the month after Mother's Day aren't sunny, times are tough.

This recession is going to shake out some of the weaker garden businesses, just as it's shaking out weak auto companies and weak banks. A good garden center, with a well-trained staff and a well-informed selection of plants and tools, is invaluable to a gardener, but you can't count on it being there. Garden centers have to make money. So if you have a garden center (or a bulb company) where you really enjoy shopping and get good advice, spend a little there, even if you can't spend what you did in years past. We want to have places left to be delirious on Mother's Day weekend when happy days are here again.

OK, maybe not delirious; maybe our days of heedless spending are over in the garden center as they are in the department store. But there always will be a Saturday when the soil is finally warm, the sun finally breaks through after a long, gray winter and we are swept with an urge to fill the back seat with plants. We will need a place to get happy.

Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe.

All contents of this post are copyright Beth Botts. Feel free to link or share a brief excerpt with a link, but please do not reproduce photos or any other part of this blog without my express permission.