Brent Heath dishes on the magic of gardening with bulbs & shares planting tips for a dazzling spring
I’m not one for name-dropping, but several years ago I was nosing around in Amsterdam’s charming Tulip Museum and, at my husband’s insistence, I quietly mentioned to the museum’s director that Brent and Becky Heath of Gloucester, Virginia were friends and neighbors.
Confetti might have rained down from the sky. We had invoked bulb royalty. At Heath’s name, the museum director broke out in a broad smile and offered to give us a behind-the-scenes tour. For the rest of our stay in Holland, we were showered with invitations to the city’s finest private gardens.
The Ultimate Plantsman
In the horticulture world, it’s hard to top Brent Heath. A third generation bulb grower, he’s got serious hort-cred and has lectured all over the world. Even the Dutch—who know a thing or two about bulbs—revere him.
John de Goede, a Dutch grower based in Breezand, a region in Holland known for its flower bulbs, is from a family steeped in the business. The de Goedes and Heaths go back decades. “From the beginning, I was impressed with Brent’s knowledge about bulbs,” de Goede told me. “It is indisputable that he has a positive influence on many gardeners throughout the U.S.”
“He’s a natural connector for our profession,” notes Brian Trader, President and CEO of Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, a longtime customer. “He is a legend and one of my most favorite people in the plant industry. The very mention of his name brings great admiration.” Trader says one of Heath’s most valuable qualities is that he “transects all sectors of horticulture—public gardens, nurseries, floral, and landscapes.”
Despite these accolades, you’ll never meet anyone more genuine and down to earth.
When Brent Heath tells you that his job is to spread happiness through flowers, he’s not kidding. “They bring smiles to peoples’ faces,” he says. “And my job is to keep people smiling.”
Heath himself is perennially happy. When he dispenses advice to customers at Brent & Becky’s Bulbs in Gloucester, he gestures enthusiastically, waving his clippers like an appendage. Bearded and bespectacled, he is remarkably youthful at 76. With a twinkle in his eye, he accepts the badge of “legend” with an aw shucks kind of vibe.
Back to the Beginning…
In the early 1900s, and for decades afterwards, Gloucester, a little village on Virginia’s Middle Peninsula, was the daffodil capital of the U.S. And the Heath family had a hand in the story.
It started in the Manhattan townhouse of Charles Heath, Brent’s grandfather, in 1900, when he encountered a slice of cantaloupe on his breakfast plate one summer morning. He took one bite and fell head over heels in love, prompting him to track down the grower and order a case delivered once a week. That cantaloupe led him to Gloucester and Mathews counties where the sandy soils produced super sweet, succulent melons.
One visit to the area, and melons took a backseat once Heath saw millions of daffodils growing wild in the fields. Sensing an opportunity, he moved his family South and enlisted the expertise of a Dutch grower. His enterprise soon became one of the top bulb suppliers in the country.
But Daffodils are Not Native
Some insist that daffodils are native to the U.S. Not so. Neither are peanuts, peaches, or apples for that matter, but that’s another story. Instead, they’re indigenous to bits and bobs of southwestern Europe and North Africa.
So how did they get here? Hundreds of years ago, explains Heath, women crossing the Atlantic in giant square-rigged tall ships of the 17th and 18th centuries, stuffed bulbs into the hems of their clothing, “to remind them of home,” as they headed for new lives in the Colonies. By the 20th century, the counties along the Chesapeake were strewn with countless daffodils, which had perennialized thanks to the ladies of yore.
A robust Narcissus economy developed, with Virginia supplying the flower markets of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York through the wharves that dotted the Bay and a steamboat system that transported goods and passengers up and down the coast. After World War II, Brent remembers when he and his classmates would get a week off from school each spring just to pick daffodils to sell.
While Charles Heath’s bulb business was anchored in Mathews County, once his son, George, took over, he moved to nearby Gloucester, where it continued to blossom; in 1938, he christened it The Daffodil Mart. George expanded the business significantly, and after his death in 1968, Brent took the helm. It’s now one of the star attractions in the little country hamlet of Ware Neck.
Mr. & Mrs. Daffodil, Bulb Ambassadors
If Brent is the Daffodil Ambassador of the business, Becky, his wife of 43 years, is the engine that makes it run. A teacher by trade, she’s also an ace strategist and problem solver.
The first catalogs of the then-Daffodil Mart were typed on a Smith Corona, copied up at the local office supply store, and stapled in corners, always with a yellow cover page—a homespun compendium highlighting hundreds of daffodil varieties, sometimes with line drawings that accompanied descriptions. Becky crafted messages that were down to earth and personal—about children, milestones, news from the farm—shared with their thousands of loyal customers.
And as the business grew and their partnerships with Dutch growers expanded, the couple added other bulbs like tulips, hyacinth, muscari, and anemones, along with tubers, rhizomes, corms, like dahlias, iris, ranunculus, and peonies to keep up with customer demand.
A name change came in the early 2000s—to Brent & Becky’s Bulbs. The company now produces two catalogs, each one encyclopedically informative, and now with plenty of color photos (many taken by Brent) to illustrate flowers in bloom: one features bulbs to plant in the fall for spring blooms (like tulips and daffodils) and the second includes bulbs to plant in the spring for summer and fall blooms (like dahlias and lilies).
Always Inventing: The Hybrids
Through the years, Brent has hybridized hundreds of thousands of new daffodils. Among them, about 50 have cleared the complex trial and registration process required to enter into commercial cultivation. His signature daffs have an international following, with Prince Charles favoring ‘Golden Echo’ and ‘Katie Heath’ winning over Russian gardeners. The Heaths now partner with Dutch growers and hybridizers and continue to introduce innovative new varieties each year.
The business is now a savvy, world-class operation that serves botanical gardens in Chicago, Denver, Atlanta, New York, Fort Worth, and Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden here in Virginia—as well as highway departments (Georgia Department of Transportation is one of their most loyal), and lots and lots of home gardeners.
Brent & Becky’s Bulbs is still a family affair, with son and daughter-in-law Jay and Denise Hutchins now on board. Jay is general manager, Denise runs the successful on-site Bulb Shoppe, which sells all manner of plants, bulbs, and garden supplies. “Succession planning is always a part of any smart business plan,” notes Becky. “We’re watching our Dutch bulb partners begin to transition their operations to the next generation. We’re doing that, too.”
If you happen to be in the area, don’t miss the four-acre Chesapeake Bay Friendly Garden, an oasis the couple have cultivated on their property. Its multiple garden rooms feature lively plant combinations, whimsical sculptures, meditative spaces, and of course, bulbs galore. Brent credits companion planting, rich compost, and soil health as the keys to the garden’s success.
Bulbs are unbeatable additions to any garden, but the daffodil is “the ideal perennial,” says Brent. “They thrive and perennialize, they’re tolerant of most soils as long as they have drainage, and they’re drought tolerant,” he says, adding that daffodils don’t require a lot of additional nutrients, are almost pest-free, and make excellent companion plants for perennials, annuals, ground cover, shrubs, and trees. With a trademark stroke of his beard and a decided wink he asks the million-dollar question: “What more could you ask for in the garden?” BrentandBeckysBulbs.com
Bulb Planting Tips
Timing: Plant in the fall for spring blooming bulbs, around the first frost date, usually when trees begin to lose their leaves. If you wait to plant after the first of the year, make sure your bulbs are firm. Bulbs planted late may have shorter stems in their first year and will bloom later, but will most likely catch up.
Ordering & Storage: Bulb suppliers will time their shipments to coordinate with optimal planting times in your area. Bulbs aren’t big on being soilless for stretches of time, so avoid storing them for too long. Providing stored bulbs adequate air circulation is important.
Sun: Most daffs prefer full sun. If planting in filtered or partial shade, ensure they get at least six hours of sunlight per day.
Location: Plant your bulbs near a window view or in a garden bed that you see often and can enjoy.
Soil & Preparation: Bulbs like adequate drainage—daffodils in particular. If possible, supplement the spot with hummus-enriched soil to build soil health. If you use compost, make sure it’s well-decomposed to avoid root rot and harmful bacteria buildup. Heavy soil can benefit from the addition of gravel or coarse sand. Also, Heath says, skip the digging: just build up the bulb bed from grade level, and ensure you’re providing the right depth of coverage on top.
Planting: Groups of 10 or more look best in order to achieve a focal effect. The usual rule of thumb is to plant each bulb three times the depth of its height.
Bulbs: If you’re a beginner, buy a small quantity—10 or 20 bulbs. The return is incalculable. There’s nothing quite like the reward of blooming bulbs in a spring garden, especially if you had a hand in planting them.
Harvesting: Never use clippers to cut daffodils. Sharp blades can compress stem tissue, preventing water from being absorbed. Instead, snap the stem close to the ground. A clean break enables the flower to absorb water.
Tip: Remember that the beauty of gardening is there are no hard rules in nature. You can always make changes to your garden if you want to experiment in subsequent years.
Friendly Companions
Plants can paint a landscape with showstopping color throughout the seasons. Lilies (at left), for example, make bold statements in the garden if you’re looking for pops of color. They also make wonderful companion plants for grasses, annuals, and perennials, and they love shallow-rooted pals like peonies, columbine, and irises that help keep their roots cool. They’re available in countless colors, with some varieties sporting spots, speckles, contrasting edges, and brushed-on stripes.
Companions can mean rivers of daffodils combined with tulips and muscari—high drama in the landscape, especially when planted in large quantities. Or it can mean plants in 50 shades of blue or a riot of different colors. Plant strategically and focus on successive blooms so that you’ll have something flowering during the course of a growing season. Mix and match bulbs, tubers, and rhizomes, and combine them with perennials and annuals to achieve strikingly beautiful combinations in the garden. Lilium is a genus of about 100 species. Hybrids are classified into eight divisions and include Asiatic, Oriental, and American.
Lasagna Garden
These layered gardens are built the way you make lasagna—sauce, pasta, cheese, repeat. In bulb-speak, a lasagna garden translates to layers of soil and bulbs, as in the step-by-step photos below. Brent Heath says they’re one of the best ways to enjoy bulbs in the garden, whether in containers or in the landscape. For lasagna gardens in pots, choose bulbs that bloom at the same time for one massive explosion of color; for the landscape, stagger bloom times—called succession planting—or not. It’s all up to you.
The rule of thumb is that the larger the bulb, the deeper it gets planted, and generally speaking, that means they’re planted to a depth of three times their size. So large bulbs, like daffodils, which can be as big as your fist, go deepest, with the smallest bulbs, like Muscari (grape hyacinth) and Chionodoxa (glory-of-the-snow)—about the size of your pinky nail—as the top layer. Either way, in the landscape or in your favorite container, lasagna gardens are easy-peasy and net the most spectacular results.
How your lasagna garden grows is only limited by your imagination. Go for a patriotic garden with red tulips, white daffodils, and blue muscari. Or, if you’re in a monochromatic mood, maybe a one-color scheme—with lots of white daffodils, or a sea of tiny blue flowers—is more your speed.
If you can’t decide on a theme, mix it up: ‘Spring Paradise,’ a new variety Brent & Becky’s introduced this year, is a fully double mid-spring blooming Narcissus that’s wonderfully fragrant and bright yellow. Tulipa ‘Cabanna,’ a parrot variety resembling an extra-frilly bloom dipped in magenta Kool-Aid, is also a 2022 B&B introduction.
This article originally appeared in the October 2022 issue.
