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January 14, 2011, Tipp City, Ohio:  We love introducing new plant varieties to our customers, and this Spring is no exception! We pride ourselves in providing a selection that is exciting, interesting and not readily available in local nurseries or big box stores. Our new Spring 2011 catalog is in the mail, and here’s a list of just a few new products you’ll find inside.

You’ll Be Blue Over Our New Pre-Planned Garden

One of the hardest flower colors to find is true blue. That’s what makes our Blue Butterfly Sun Garden so interesting. This pre-planned garden offers five perennial flowers in different shades of blue: Caroline Vandenburg Tall Hybrid Phlox, The Governor Lupine, Butterfly Blue Scabiosa and Professor Kippenberg Dwarf Aster. Our pre-planned gardens are so popular because we do all the planning for you. Each comes with all of the plants you’ll need, and the easy-to-use planting diagrams are included with each garden to ensure a breathtaking display every time!

Virginian Silk Attracts Butterflies

Virginian Silk is an interesting perennial that produces seed pods that resemble small parrots. The real show comes from the flocks of Monarch butterflies that will feed on this plants sap. Clusters of very fragrant pink with white flowers bloom in midsummer, and are followed by decorative pods bursting with seeds.

Shrubs to Bring Color All Year Long

New to this spring’s lineup are Red Leaf Barberry Hedge, Variegated Japanese Dwarf Cedar and Cranberry Cotoneaster standard. All of these are exciting, new additions to our top-quality selection of shrubs.

The Red Leaf Barberry Hedge blooms of small, butter yellow, bell-shaped flowers cover this shrub in spring. These small flowers are pretty, but the hedge’s main attraction is the attractive, dense, colorful foliage. The show continues in the fall as it produces bright red berries and the foliage turns its colorful, purple-red foliage to bright red.

Variegated Japanese Dwarf Cedar highlights its new growth with pure white foliage that becomes more cream-colored with the more shade it receives—a perfect addition to any partially shaded bed.

If you’re looking for a colorful evergreen to grace your landscape, a Cranberry Cotoneaster is the perfect choice for you! Its beautiful foliage changes from green to shades of purple, red bronze in the fall. This ever-changing shrub bears small pinkish flowers in late spring, and gives way to cranberry-like berries in late summer.

Our Delicious Fruit Selection Grows

Since we are just as interested in health and well-being as we are about the beauty in your garden, we are continuing to add new and exciting fruits this season. We’ve added a variety of fruits to make sure that there is something for everyone in your household. There is nothing better than homegrown fruit picked fresh for your whole family to enjoy!  We’ve added Ka-Bluey® Blueberry, Red Colonnade Apple, Cabot June Bearing Strawberry and the highly anticipated Goji Berry.

The Goji Berry is a superfood that is high in antioxidants and extremely versatile due to its slightly sweet, mildly tangy flavor. The bright orange-red berries are great freshly picked, as a dried snack or made into juices, wines and herbal teas.

This is just a sneak-peak of the new plants we are offering in our Spring 2011 catalog. As always, we are working diligently to provide gardeners with exciting, new, top-quality flowers, trees, shrubs and fruits.

For information on these new products and more, log on to www.springhillnursery.com.

Forcing Bulbs Indoors – The Easiest Way to get Color and Fragrance in Midwinter

Don’t spend the cold winter season mourning the loss of your garden – get your growing fix by forcing bulbs indoors! There is nothing better than a pot of brightly colored flowers in the middle of winter. Forcing bulbs to bloom indoors is the easiest way to get color and fragrance in midwinter.

Easy Forcing Bulbs

Many traditional garden bulbs can be grown indoors in winter, including crocuses, hyacinths, and miniature daffodils, which are all quite easy to force indoors. With the holidays quickly approaching, the stunning amaryllis is a large, lily-like flower that is perhaps the easiest of all flower bulbs to bring to bloom. Tulips and full-sized daffodils can be a bit more challenging, but their beauty is more than worth the challenge.

All of these bulbs require a period of chilling before they bloom. During this chilling period, the bulbs should be placed in the container being used for growing, and kept moist. The chilling period is a length of time, usually about 12-15 weeks, which most bulbs require before they can begin the blooming process. Place the pots containing the bulbs in a cold, but not freezing, location. For many, this will be the refrigerator. If you don’t have room in your fridge, you can place them in an attached garage or an unheated porch.

Amaryllis

The most commonly grown indoor bulb is the Amaryllis, which does not require a chilling period in order to grow. Amaryllis is an iconic holiday flower. The striking display of huge red flowers will impress either as a gift or as a centerpiece on your holiday table. And they don’t only come in red – they are available in white, pink, yellow, red-laced white, and more! Put simply, no other indoor flower compares with amaryllis for beauty and ease of growth. Because amaryllis does not require a chilling period, simply follow the steps below for beautiful blooms.

How to Force Bulbs Indoors

Because the flower is already fully formed inside the bulb after the previous year’s growth, many of these flowers don’t need dirt, just water and light, in order to bloom. Many bulbs can be easily grown settled into a bed of decorative marbles, gravel or stones in a waterproof dish.

Your bulbs will arrive dormant when you order from Breck’s. They can be forced out of dormancy by placing them in a well-lit area at just the right temperature, usually about 65°F. Water the bulb sparingly until it stems and leaves emerge, then gradually increase the amount of water you give it. Six weeks after its arrival, you’ll have blooms. It’s that easy!

When the blooms fade, continue regular watering and feeding to maintain the foliage, which will feed the bulb for next year’s bloom. Then, about 16-18 weeks before you want to see blooms (around Labor Day for Christmas bloom), stop watering and let the foliage die back. Six to eight weeks before you want it to bloom, remove the bulb from the soil, cut off the dead foliage, and strip off any loose scales from the bulb. Repot in a clean container with the upper two-thirds of the bulb above the soil.

Repeat steps as provided above to draw the plant out of dormancy; about six weeks later, your amaryllis will reward you with stunning blooms!

For show stopping color indoors in the winter season, nothing beats flower bulbs. Click here to see Breck’s Holiday Amaryllis, Paper White Daffodil Kits,and a huge selection of other flower bulbs!

Breck’s
Breck’s is a mail order gardening company and importer of Dutch flower bulbs. Based in Guilford, Indiana, and Hillegom, Netherlands, Breck’s was founded in 1818. Breck’s is now the largest U.S. importer of Dutch bulbs.

www.Brecks.com/Amaryllis