A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion Hobbies, Crafts and Creativity bulb assortment as wedding favor: need ideas

I hope you all can do some brain-storming & help me out. My daughter is getting married August 22nd, in Greensboro, NC. She wants to give the guests (about 30 people, fewer if you think in terms of couples) little decorative boxes of bulbs/tubers that folks can plant in their own gardens. She has in mind irises (blue flag I think) and daffodils, maybe one other. Some of the guests will be flying into Greensboro from Florida and Illinois (so I don't know if there are restrictions on carrying plant material on an airplane into these states).

Here are my questions. First, she's running into difficulty getting the bulbs because no one will ship them to her (either in LA where she lives, or to Greensboro) before September 1. I haven't checked my local nurseries yet, but this problem might go away if I can find a local source (in Cincinnati).

Next, how should the bulbs be packaged? What should the medium in the cute little boxes be to pack the bulbs in?

If I can't find what she wants here, is it possible to dig up things from the garden (actually, my mom's garden who lives in Greensboro) and use that? If so, when? And how? Should they go into a fridge?

I think it's a great idea, I just have no clue as to how to go about it. I am hoping you all can help me out.

Thoughts? Websites?

You don't lift the bulbs until fall which is why you can't get them now. And if you took them out of the garden now they would not be in good shape at all. It's a great idea but not this time of year. Sorry to be a killjoy.

To me a lot of this depends on the people coming to the wedding. I would be thrilled to get an iris rhizome from a friends grandmothers garden but since the rhizome won't look new some people may not like it. She could make a card to put with them that tells the story of where they are from to make it sentimental.

I live not far from Greensboro and there's nothing to digging up and keeping iris rhizomes around here. I do it all the time. I don't refrigerate them. They can be left laying around out in the open for months and still produce. I usually wash them with a little bleach and a lot of water. The only thing about putting them in some type of box is that I've always left a little bit of the leaf on the rhizome. I don't know if that's necessary or not.

And yes in Cal most bulbs can be dug up at any time also. The 'mailing dates' on most catalogs drive me nuts. Good luck with this. Iris rhizomes are usually a little large for a "little decorative box".
There are a lot of companies who will put together a seed packet printed up just the wy you would like too.

Thanks! I'll let you know how this turns out.