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OT Ordering garden plants online

Even though our yard is tiny, we have been trying to grow more of our own food. Some things you have to buy plants for because they are extremely difficult to grow from seed, or propagate by other means. Before I order plants from a new place these days, I pop over to davesgarden.com and check the watchdog, and run assorted searches to see what I can find out. It is a pretty good method for seeds, less good for plants. Why is it good for the one but not the other? Because people are stupid.

I keep seeing negetive nursery reviews from people in warm climates complaining that they ordered plants from a place in Canada-New England-Wisconsin etc. and did not recieve them in a timely fashion. It always turns out that they didn't bother to read the shipping information, and expected plants they ordered in January to show up within two weeks.

Then there are the ones that order plants from a company 3000 miles away and get all huffy because the plants are wilty when they arrive.

Of course we must not leave out the ones who fancy that a bare root plant (a plant forced into dormancy and shipped with no soil) is likely to be more than a stick with roots on it. It seems that some of them expect to get a lushly leafed plant full of fruit and blossom.

Then you have the ones with very unreasonable expectations. The "I ordered an apple tree online and all I got was a two foot tall plant that took FIVE YEARS to bear fruit." crowd.

The lady who ordered a rosebush and was "shocked and appalled" to have it delivered by the mailman, had me giggling. The one who's nut tree bore "big green globs instead of nuts", got me to laughing. The one who was very disappointed because her plant was green when she had ordered lavender just finished me off. DH came a running after I had sprayed the moniter with coffee and was quite certain I was choking to death.

When it comes to plants I think I shall have to just stick with my policy of ordering from the place nearest to me, and make inquiries of other gardeners I know. Though that is not much help when it comes to certain hard to find things. There are two places I have found that sell Dittany of Crete and they are equidistant from me.

NightMist has a certain expectation that people will read up a little when starting a new venture, and is so is often surprised.

Reply to
NightMist
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Sweetie, I have lived 51 years and some months now and nothing that points to the amazing stupidity of the human race surprises me any more. I know this is harsh, but I'm feeling a bit harsh right now. I just found out that my DH didn't go back to the dr. earlier this month because "that nice nurse who answers the telephone" told him to give it a few more days before coming back in. Ok, I don't even know where to start with that one ............... better just leave it alone.

But plants are amazingly strong and most can survive even our most human blundering.

That said, one day when we lived in Tempe, AZ, I went to my favorite nursery and there sat a lilac bush. Now I love lilac and have since I was a child and I also knew that lilac would NOT grow in the desert. I asked and the "nice man who answers the phone" told me that it was a cultivar developed in Israel specifically to grow in the desert. I bought it in a blink. I planted it in the most sheltered place in my yard and tended it carefully. When it began to falter I called the nursery for advice and was told "ice the roots". (I am not making this up -- I don't have that much imagination today) Ok. I spent the next two weeks buying bags of ice and faithfully packing the ice around the roots. Of course the ice did nothing but melt fast and the poor little plant hung on like a trouper for a few months until one day the last leaf fell off and I sent the little thing on the Rainbow Bridge. Much later, I was back at the nursery and mentioned the death to another nursery worker who looked at me as if I were (what's your sign??? ) totally stupid and said that the bush had been delivered accidentally and that it had been intended for delivery in Flagstaff -- which has a slightly more lilac accommodating climate than Tempe. Groan.

I'm much better about doing my own investigating now when it comes to ..... um, just about everything. Thank goodness for the Internet. And Snopes.com. Between the two I stay fairly on target. I've even learned to grow a garden in a climate where it's not unusual for winter temperatures to go below 0F.

Sunny

Reply to
Sunny

I usually buy all my plants from small local nurseries because I want to keep them around to provide me with great advice on what will grow *here*.

Last fall I wanted several plants that weren't available locally, so I did a search and found Plant Delights. When I read their "How To Be a Good Customer" essay

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most of the way down), I knew I just HAD to buy something from them. :) (For the nosy, we were looking for abutilons.
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We ordered one in every color and LOVE them.)

Reply to
Kathy Applebaum

I would order a lot more plants online except the shipping from most places is more than the plant costs. I know shipping correctly is expensive, but gosh!

Cindy

Reply to
teleflora

Oh I hear that!

I generally prefer old varieties of most things, so I wind up doing a fair bit of mailorder and online ordering. Plus of course there are the specialty plants that you can only get in a couple of places.

When I ordered some roses a couple of years ago, the shipping literally did exceed the cost of the plants. I paid $8 for one bush, and my daughter decided she wanted one, and hers cost $12. We got them from Chamberlee, and their handling charges are quite minimal. Still since they were 1 gallon pots they cost the earth to ship. Total cost when actual shipping was tagged on was around $45. It is the weight of the soil that makes it cost so, and the bulkiness of the package. Of the $25 it cost to ship, more than $20 of it was the actual charge by the shipping agency, I don't recall exactly which one it was.

There are a few companies around that still charge flat rate shipping based on price for plants, but they sell bare root and small pots, small meaning four inches or less. Sometimes that is just fine, I bought fifty strawberry plants bareroot and they are laying plans to take over the whole yard. Sometimes you sacrifice speed for economy, my hollys are doing very well, but they arived in 4 inch pots so it has taken them three years to make a foot and a half in height. The roses were blooming in their second year, in fact the Austin rose my daughter got bloomed the fall after we got it, and have almost attained their fully mature height and spread. You have to look at what you are buying and juggle the aspects of reality until you find a pleasing combination to make happen.

NightMist

Reply to
NightMist

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