I know the real deal is hard to find, but you might be able to find someone to trade with at the Texas Gardening Forum (link here). There are lots of great folks with old gardens and bulbs on that site and many times people trade.

I hope you find some–they are indeed beautiful!

I wish I had some more information on botanical illustration classes, but alas I am not an illustrator. All the ones on my blog are from copyright-free sources and are mostly Victorian! I do collect books on botanical art but that’s about it. I hope you find something great.

With your comments, many blogs require a first-time commenter to be approved by the blog admin (me) before publishing the reply or subsequent comments. So that’s why they didn’t show up. I published this comment but edited out your phone number.

Thanks,
Amy

I’ll wait for your reply with my good luck necklace on!

Thanks,
Linda Bohn

From my experience, most irises can handle a drought. Mine survived two summers of no water. There are some fussier types but whatever is multiplying in your yard are probably not those. When you replant, make sure that the rhizomes (the bulb-like thing the leaves are attached to) are visible on the top of the soil/mulch. They don’t like to be buried and can rot that way. So go easy on the mulch. I have learned this the hard way. Some of them probably need to be thinned out. You probably noticed little baby rhizomes growing off the mother ones. You can divide those by replanting the babies. I’ve also noticed that after replanting, they usually skip a year of blooming. So I usually like to leave a few undisturbed, so I don’t go a year without any pretty blooms!

I hope that helps!

Thanks so much,
Carrie

Freesia do best when they are planted in the fall–at least in Austin. They start shooting up their leaves in early winter, but can be sensitive to frost and if we have a bad year with a freeze (like this past spring), they will die back. So what I do is plant some in fall and a few in the spring (late February) as insurance. Gladiolus is usually planted in the spring, because they are frost sensitive… Depending on where you live, you may want to look up glads for your area. Not all of them return year after year. I have some that do. The very best glads for Texas are Byzantine glads, which as an exception to the rule are planted in the fall. They are gorgeous! The liatris can be planted now…

I’ve been terrible with buying bulbs and then forgetting to plant… sometimes they dry out so you may have lost a few but don’t worry, you’ll have some surprises in there! I hope that helps! The best place to store bulbs is in a cool spot, that helps prolong their life if you aren’t going to plant them soon.