Sunday, January 27, 2008

Bulk bulb order from Janis Ruksans' catalog

From John Gilrein, Plant of the Month Coordinator:

The Adirondack Chapter is going to coordinate a group order from Janis Ruksans nursery in Latvia. Some of you will remember Janis, the well-traveled speaker at our October 2007 meeting. He has traveled extensively throughout the area formerly behind the Iron Curtain -- including Eastern Europe, Turkey, Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia -- hunting for plants. Ruksans nursery specializes in exotic geophytes, including bulbs, corms, tubers, etc. Geophytes are plants that have developed means to store energy underground to carry them through difficult growing conditions, usually involving drought, cold, or heat. We’ll ignore the scientific designation and refer to geophytes as bulbs in this article.

The nursery grows bulbs that are rare, unique, and/or unavailable from other sources, catering to collectors and gardeners with a taste for the unusual. Prices in the 2007 catalog (which are listed in Euros) vary from a modest 1 Euro to 70 Euros for a really rare specimen. We’ll continue to promote the group order for a while, but we plan to get the order in relatively early, since quantities are limited, and we’re more likely to have our order filled if we order in the Spring. Most of the bulbs will be summer dormant, and thus will be shipped in the summer. If you’re interested in ordering, it would be wise to consider the native conditions of the bulbs you will purchase. Some of the bulbs offered are easy to cultivate, others may need special growing conditions, for example withholding watering in the summer (and protecting from rain).

Catalog offerings include: many Alliums (flowering onions), Anemones, Arisaemas and Arums (jack in the pulpit relatives), Crocus, Corydalis, Fritillarias, Geraniums, Iris, Tulips, and many others. The catalog is enjoyable to peruse with the great variety offered and lots of beautiful photos. For questions about ordering, contact me at: basecamp@alum.syracuse.edu or (315)-477-8419. We’ll have to work out some of the details, such as the exchange rate, closer to ordering time, and I’m sure we’ll need payment at the time of the order.

The catalog is available online at this site:
http://www.remarc.com/craig/images/2008ruksans.pdf
For hardcopies of the catalog, send $5 US to:
Janis Ruksans, Dr. Biol.
P O Rozula
LV – 4150 Cesis Dist.
Latvia

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I posted about Ruksans' presentation last fall on personal blog here: http://www.remarc.com/craig/?p=278

And about his catalog here: http://www.remarc.com/craig/?p=325

Anonymous said...

I'd recommend we get this order finalized by April 1. ==Carol

Carol_E said...

Here's a great resource for finding images of bulbs from Ruksans catalog (image pages from the Pacific Bulb Society): http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/PhotographsAndInformation/ You'll still have to do additional homework to figure out hardiness (Ruksans book, a good map, etc.). Then there's trying to determine if our summers work for a particular bulb cultivar considering it may be too wet here. That might be a little hit and miss. Have fun everyone!

Anonymous said...

Hey
I was wondering if anybody knows when ruksan´s catalog 2010 is available. And if there is a possibility to find it in the net.
How are your experiences with orders from ruksan, how is the quality of his bulbs? all the best philipp (berlin, germany)