Re: mailorder nurseries was: price and quality
- To:
- Subject: Re: mailorder nurseries was: price and quality
- From: M* T*
- Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 02:04:50 -0500
Back in the stone age of the early days of my gardening, I ordered a lot of
plants from Wayside, captivated by the lovely photos (tho' you do sometimes
have to add a grain of salt on their color of flowers and foliage), and not
knowing about all the smaller nurseries out there who, like Gene and Paul
grow their own plants. Well, after too many DOA plants or wrongly labeled
plants or sorry sold out - even when I'd actually ordered early - I got
totally disgusted with them. Yes, they will refund your money or send
another plant next year or whatever. But that does not help when you have
that hole in your carefully thought out border or the plant in it turns out
to be a screamingly wrong color.
Wayside's prices are also completely out of all reason anymore.
Probably 90% of my garden has come via mailorder...for a number of reasons
I won't bore you with, but some of which have already been voiced. I agree
that if you have a reliable local nursery and want a fairly common species
in a larger size - by all means, buy locally. If, however, like me you
have no self control in a nursery or you are looking for a particular
plant, mailorder is the only way to go. You can contemplate the lists in
the quiet of your own home, add and delete, mull and ponder, do research on
the plant to see if it really stands a chance in your garden..all things
it's hard to do when lust hits as you are FTF with hundreds of pots of
plants that you want ALL of. And, most important, via mailorder you will
find species and cultivars of plants that you will never see in your basic
local nursery or garden center.
Last year, I did a short series of articles about some of the online
nurseries and I've just started a new series (as you can see by my SIG,
Gene's Munchkin nursery is this week's feature). I will be doing some more
because there are so many I want to share - really good smaller nurseries
run by people who grow and love their plants and some larger that have been
high on my list for years. I also have links to various sources for lists
of nurseries as well as the Mailorder FAQ site - a must visit for those new
to mailorder nurseries...I'm too tired tonight to search out URLs and
addresses, so, if you're interested, check out my articles - last year's
were about Feb. and are in the list of old articles tho' the lousy
numbering system doesn't make them easy to find. The URL to my welcome
page with the link to this year's is in my SIG.
The major point with mailorder is to place a small first order to see if
you like the quality of the plants a particular nursery is sending. Do NOT
buy plants from places that send out glossy catalogs you did not send for
and who use fanciful common names for plants and don't even give the
botanical name (or it's in minute print under "Fluffy Pink Maiden's Tears"
or whatever they've come up with), no matter how low the price is and how
tempting. You might as well take that money and flush it. Be wary of
buying a ready made "garden" or "border". How in the name of all that is
holy does that nursery know what will grow in your garden conditions? The
answer is that they don't and it is very likely that what they send won't -
or only a couple will survive.....again, you are just flushing money.
PLEASE don't order things like Trillium, Ladyslipper orchids and Cyclamen
from nurseries who do not state plainly that these are NURSERY PROPAGATED
(not just nursery grown) plants. They will be wild collected and helping
to wipe out the world's dwindling and endangered wild populations and
likely will not live long in your garden.
Re: shipping costs....Gene and Paul are right. It is about impossible to
make money on shipping. The time it takes to pull, clean up and pack a
plant is a lot...I know this because I regularly send plants to people in
trade, etc. every season...and I don't have a nursery I'm trying to make a
living from. And this doesn't count the cost of the shipping materials or
the time involved in paperwork or the steep costs that UPS has (sent any
hefty boxes via UPS lately? If so, you know what I'm talking about)...I
even did a page on shipping costs that I link to in my articles, as I hear
so often that the shipping is *so* high, and feel pretty strongly on this
issue.
Re: plant guarantees....any nursery worth its salt will guarantee a plant
to be true to name, healthy and in good condition when it leaves their
nursery. Only mass mailers who don't give a toot whether the plant lives
or dies and have deep pockets will guarantee the plant once it is out of
their hands. There are too many factors a nursery cannot control involved
once you get the plant. Reputable nurseries will try to resolve
difficulties that have some basis in reality, but don't expect them to
replace plants that were not handled correctly once received or wouldn't
grow in the conditions you have to offer in the first place. Do your plant
homework; read, ask learn about the plant before you order it.
The 1997 Plant Delights catalog back cover featured a poem by Geoffrey B.
Charlesworth entitled "Why Did My Plant Die?" that has become one of my
favorites. I'm gonna quote some bits of it - totally without permission of
the copyright holder - as a little illustration: (This is considered for
educational purposes :-)
"You walked to close. You trod on it
You dropped a piece of sod on it.
You hoed it down. You weeded it.
You planted it the wrong way up.
You grew it in a yoghurt cup.
But you forgot to make a hole;
The soggy compost took its toll.
September storm. November drought.
It heaved in March, the roots popped out"
"You planted it with crown too high;
The soil washed off, that explains why.
Too high pH. It hated lime,
Alas it needs a gentler clime.
You left the root ball wrapped in plastic.
You broke the roots. They're not elastic"
It goes on with many more reasons why a plant can die in the hands of the
gentle gardener. So my point is, do not expect grand plants from companies
who make a point about being ready and willing to "guarantee" that plant
and give you your money back - no questions asked...they are expecting to
do this as the garbage they send necessitates it, but they cover the
country and the volume they do covers the expense of replacing stuff.
They know that low prices, color photos and exuberant descriptions of how
"easy" the plant is to grow will hook people in to ordering...happens all
the time.
Anyway, you can tell I'm a fan of mailorder nurseries :-) Esp. at this
time of year, when the garden is a mess and plant lust strikes. So, try
the ones everyone on the lists recommends - and particularly the ones of
the people on this and other lists!! Afterall - you *know* these people
through their helpful posts - they are the nursery owners and if you have a
problem, you know where to find them. Look in the back of good gardening
mags like Horticulture and Fine Gardening for the small black and white
adds and send away for a catalog or list - most will have few or no color
photos; some are simply lists of names - but very often those are the
places you want to buy plants from. And (shameless plug) stay tuned to my
series of articles. If you're looking for a specific plant - post,
someone will know where to get it. If in doubt about a nursery you've
found, ask on a mailing list - it's likely that someone will have had
experience with them - or check out the FAQ I mentioned. I truly believe
we need to support our small specialty nurseries, or, like the small
neighborhood bookstores, they will fade away and we gardeners will be much
poorer because we will not be able to find those truly unusual and nifty
plants to fill our dreams and our gardens.
(graceful dismount from soapbox)
Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@clark.net
Editor: Gardening in Shade
current article: Mailorder Nurseries - On and Off Line - Part 2 - Munchkin
Nursery
http://suite101.com/welcome.cfm/222
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@mallorn.com with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PERENNIALS
