I haven't bought them from any of the big box stores but I have ordered them from catalogs (online) and from my favorite garden center (Logans). I usually grow them in pots but they pretty much do the same either way. I find them in the fall and plant them around Thanksgiving time. If you plant them too early they'll sprout early and it may mess up the blooming in the spring so store them in the fridge if you buy them early. The tubers or corms or whatever they call the bulbs don't look like any other flower bulb and it can be hard to tell which side is up. I soak them overnight in warm water (cold is fine too) and then plant them on their side. They will send up some small leaves whenever it is warm and these leaves will survive all winter long unless it gets really cold. Then in the spring the whole plant will emerge and make a nice bushy mound then it will start blooming. After a month or so of blooming the whole plant dies back and goes dormant. The coronaria type can come back for years (they eventually go down hill). The wind flower type can last forever and spread around your yard.

Some years they are very easy to grow and other years they struggle - I have no idea why.

john, you're talking about anemones, not ranunclus, at least at the end. But i think they are treated similarly. I've grown the cornaria amemones several times, and they are lovely and worth it. Big boxes do carry the bulbs of both ranunclus and anemones. The windflower anems are perennials here- the coronarias will come back a few times and peter out. They make such wonderful cut flowers they are well worth growing, esp since they bloom very early. I don't know about ranunclus, since i've only tried them like 1 time, but i mostly see them blooming in spring, so i'd try to find the bulbs in the fall.

You're right!!! I got carried away. I usually buy them both at the same time and treat them the same way. I have never had Ranunculus come back or survive the summer no matter what I did (pull the bulb and store it, leave it in place). They're offered in the fall for spring blooms but they usually bloom just fine from late planted bulbs too - but not too late.

Incidently - there is a small area of Italy that has been growing Anemone coronaria and Ranunculus for cut flowers for like ever. They have their own special colors and super big flower sizes on long long stems. The flowers come in weird color combos like lime green center petals with chocolate brown outer petals or ivory white streaked with blood red spatters or even flowers with one color on the inside of each petal and a different color on the outside. Very striking and wonderful. The flowers are about the size of a extra large grapefruit!!!! on three foot stems!!!! And they only recently started selling the bulbs to growers outside of the families that have been growing them since like the Roman Empire days. And of course its like $20 each bulb so it may be a while before I buy any.

way cool- i'd love to see some of those cut flowers! I don't buy cut flowers hardly ever, but i think i'd be hard pressed not to buy those unless they were super expensive. I've told DH many a time i'd much rather have a bouquet of anemones than roses- not that i get either! LOL! Truthfully, i'd rather have a plant and he knows it and gets me a blooming orchid from time to time.