The Case of the Missing Bulbs - or All's Well that Ends Well

Before I get into my little garden mystery regarding missing bulbs, I'll start with a few beauty shots of my back garden during what we expect will be a very short reprieve from the rain.  My "water year" to-date rain total (counted from October 1, 2025) is 2.89 inches but that tally may be low as my rooftop rain meter was clogged during the first twenty-four hours of the "atmospheric river's" movement through Southern California.  My total includes the 0.74/inch of rain delivered by October's surprise storm.  Counts quoted by nearby areas have suggested the total could be an inch or more greater than we recorded.  Downtown Los Angeles reported 3.47 inches just from the November rain and Santa Barbara was hit hard by 8.58 inches.  All those totals are many times greater than the norms for the southern part of the state in November, or most any other month here.  And we have a ninety percent chance of more rain starting this Thursday. 

View from the back door yesterday morning looking east

Another view looking south

Our backyard fountain is full to the brim for the first time in recent memory without any help from me

The next rainstorm is expected to roll from Thursday into Friday  My rain tanks are already full and, as the ground is saturated and everything is thoroughly wet, there's not much I can do in the garden at the moment.  I still have thirty Freesia bulbs, a handful of Anemones, and ten lily bulbs to plant but all will have to wait until next week when the garden's dried out a bit.  So on to the case of the missing bulbs!

I've admitted to ordering a large number of bulbs this year - and that's without acknowledging the pre-orders of dahlia tubers that won't ship until spring.  However, my biggest orders were three I placed on top of one another in mid-September, all companies that obtain all or the majority of their stock from Dutch bulb sellers.  The first of these orders from K. van Bourgondien shipped in early October, absent three Hippeastrum 'Razzmatazz' bulbs to be shipped at an unspecified future date.

I received my second order on October 21st from John Scheepers.  It also arrived absent a Hippeastrum, this time a single 'Aphrodite'.

I promptly planted the Dutch Iris but the Allium bulgaricum, Ipheion uniflorum, and Tulip clusiana bulbs are sitting a time out in the fridge to get the equivalent of a "winter chill" first

I subsequently received a UPS notice regarding my order to Van Engelen, my third supplier, referencing a pending shipment.  It was quickly followed by two additional messages from UPS showing changes to the delivery date window.  The last notice referenced delivery by the evening of October 28th.  Meanwhile, I received the delayed shipments of Hippeastrums 'Razzmatazz' and 'Aphrodite' separately from their respective sellers.

When I received nothing from Van Engelen by early November, I checked the UPS tracking notice and found they'd recorded a delivery of that package on October 24th.  We checked our camera and found confirmation that I'd opened the door and picked up a small package at the time indicated by UPS.  But I couldn't remember receiving any package from Van Engelen.  I scoured the garden and everywhere and anywhere I might have placed another box.  My husband asked if I was mixing up my bulb deliveries.  Acquainted with my proclivity for "purging" junk, he also asked if I could've tossed the box by accident.  I contended that any box containing the contents of the Van Engelen order would've been large and heavy as the order included six Hippeastrum and fifteen lily bulbs, which I'd be unlikely to throw out as cardboard trash but, as our trash and recyclables had already been collected, I couldn't verify that.  As I was upset that he appeared to think I'd experienced a "senior moment," he checked our cameras to see if he could track my movements involving boxed bulbs.  The only video we found showed me handling one of the recent Hippeastrum deliveries but the box label wasn't visible.

I finally contacted Van Engelen directly by email asking if my order was still in process.  I provided the order number Van Engelen had assigned me and was told there wasn't a pending shipment.  However, I made the mistake of referencing a UPS delivery on October 24th and the customer service representative simply stated that the company had record of a shipment initiated October 20th and delivered on October 24th.  I threw in the towel at that point and decided the bulbs (and $144) might well be a lost cause - but then I noticed that location information in my incoming email "correspondents" list showed "John Scheepers" even though the contact information shown in the message itself identified her as a Van Engelen representative.  I then recalled that I'd suspected but hadn't confirmed a relationship between the two companies.  Google AI confirmed that Van Engelen owns both entities.  For the record, they send out separate catalogs and accept orders separately under the two names.  They've established different minimum order amounts, their pricing is different, and their bulb offers aren't identical.  Effectively, Scheepers operates as a retail seller while Van Engelen is more of a wholesaler.

On November 5th, the day following my exchange with Van Engelen's customer service representative, I received another notice from UPS regarding a shipment to be delivered by November 11th.

The box was bigger and heavier than any of my prior bulb deliveries.  Although the cardboard box here was photographed showing Van Engelen's name, another side of the same box says John Scheepers.  The smaller boxes received with the Scheepers bulbs only had labels identifying Scheepers.

All my Hippeastrums have been potted up (including some purchased from a 4th company).  I hope to give some away as Christmas presents assuming they don't rot in their pots after all this rain.  I intend to put them under cover before the next storm arrives.

So, the mystery is solved and all's well!  I haven't been certified as demented yet but I clearly need to pay closer attention to the companies I'm purchasing from.  I've learned that UPS labels provide tracking numbers but those bear no direct relationship to company order numbers and one has to be careful in framing queries to customer service representatives.  I also learned that I probably shouldn't delete any UPS shipping notices based on "updated schedules" until the deliveries in question are in hand.  As I've just bounced around trying to track an Amazon order that's been shoved off to a patchwork quilt of delivery companies, sending me from a transportation company in Los Angeles to a logistics company in Alabama (which has promised to email the appropriate contact back in Los Angeles), I'm wondering if the old school method of conducting purchases locally may be easiest after all.

All material © 2012-2025 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party