1. Apply snail bait liberally early in the year. The snails and slugs ruined half of the irises and all of the hostas.
2. Pull weeds early in the season. The roses grow so quickly here that it's now impossible to weed between them without incurring massive bloodshed.
3. Finish pruning all of the roses by the end of December. I was so late this year that some of them still aren't blooming.
I have to learn patience. There are dozens and dozens of nurseries near my home, but I get antsy in winter and start perusing nursery websites and ordering plants from them instead of waiting for the plants to get to my local nurseries.
This is a nice Clematis I bought from Brushwood in winter and received in February.
There's nothing wrong with this plant and I'm quite happy with it, but the other day I went to a local nursery and bought two clematises in 2-gallon containers. Here they are on either side of the one from Brushwood.
Now here's the kicker. The one in the middle, from Brushwood, cost more than the two others. I paid $14.95 and postage, which was $31.05 for six plants and therefore a little over $5 for each. The local clematises cost $18.95 each, and if I'd been there a week earlier, they would have been 25% off because the nursery was having a big reopening sale.
I used to buy lots of perennial plants from Bluestone, but I stopped a few years ago because the plants in those 3-packs were so small that I invariably lost most of them in my garden. Other plants would leaf out and tower over them, robbing them of light and water.
Another reason I stopped is that I didn't really want 3 plants in most cases. I continued to buy shrubs, vines, and bulbs from Bluestone, but avoided buying the 3-packs.
Recently the Internet was inundated with complaints about Bluestone's soaring prices. The nursery had started selling plants as units instead of in groups of three, and the price per unit was indeed much higher than it had been before. The plants were said to be larger, however, and that sounded good to me, so I placed an order. It arrived today and I'm supremely happy with the plants and with other details of the process.
No more styrofoam peanuts and no plastic pots. The plants are in coir pots and can be planted, pot and all, with no fear of transplant shock. The plants are appreciably larger than before. The box is 12 inches tall and the plants were slightly taller. You can see that their tops were just slightly flattened when the box was closed.
No staples, rubber bands, or tape were required in this packing process. In the photo above, you can see that three pieces of cardboard keep the box stable horizontally. The white tab you see on the left is the top of the envelope containing growing instructions, the invoice, and discount coupons for future use. The plants are packed in cardboard inserts that lift out of the box easily. There's space for three plants in each insert, but I ordered seven plants, so one of them got lots of extra breathing room.
The plant on the left in the photo below is Hydrangea 'Star Gazer' and the one on the right is Clematis 'Rebecca.' You can see that 'Rebecca' has already grown much taller than the stick it was supposed to climb and has snaked over into 'Star Gazer.' It's the largest Clematis I've received in the mail this season and also the least expensive. I received a discount for placing an early order and paid just $12.71 for it.
The photo on the left below is of two aquilegias: 'Dorothy Rose' and 'Winkie Double Rose and White.' I also bought three 'Ruby Port' columbines because they were half-price. The half-price plants were actually a little bit larger than the full-price ones. The photo on the right is for comparison purposes. The plant on the left is the full-price 'Dorothy Rose' and the one on the right is one of the half-price 'Ruby Ports.'
So all of the changes in Bluestone's marketing practices are positive ones, in my opinion. The plants are better, the pots are better, and the packing is better. The price of each perennial is appreciably higher than the price of one plant in a 3-pack, but it's lower than the price of the whole 3-pack, and I'd rather have one big plant than three small ones.
Some things haven't changed: They sent confirmation of my order right away, sent early notification of the delivery date, and then sent a tracking number when the package was shipped. As always, they sent a slew of discount coupons to be used on future orders.
Deliveries from Roses Unlimited arouse mixed feelings of joy and trepidation in me. They're something of an ordeal to unpack and always require a hand tool or two. They arrive in pots, encased in a plastic bag, which is tied tightly to keep the plants and potting medium secure during shipping. The bagged pot is then set into a cardboard box, the edges are folded in and down, and the edges and bag are then taped together, so that nothing can fall out.
These small boxes are then packed tightly in a larger box, tall enough to provide lots of head room for the plants in case the box is turned upside down. The small boxes are stapled to the larger box with big brass staples, so they're virtually immobilized.
It's quite a chore to remove the rose pots from their packing, especially because I don't have a giant staple remover and I have to use a giant screwdriver to pry the staples off, but all the effort is worth it when the plants are released from bondage without any damage to a single cane or even a single leaf.
Here are the three roses in this delivery, left to right: 'Sophisticated Lady,' 'Allamand Ho!,' and 'Apricot Sky.'
I know the one in the middle looks quite small, but I bought an 'Allamand Ho!' three years ago from Chamblee, which many people regard as the number-one source for Buck roses, and it actually is still smaller than this one from Roses Unlimited. It's notoriously hard to grow, so I thought I'd better have two. After all these years in commerce, there's still only one photo of it on helpmefind.com.
The roses from RU don't cost much in comparison with own-root roses from some other nurseries. These three were, left to right, $18, $16, and $20. The extraordinarily (for RU) high-priced 'Apricot Sky' is a Barni climber and it's not being offered for sale anywhere else on this continent. Actually, I think the other two are also currently unavailable from other sources.
The only drawback and only reason I don't buy more roses from RU is the high shipping cost. It costs $8 per rose to deliver them to California, and RU also charges a $5 handling fee for each order. On the other hand, this cost hasn't risen in several years, whereas Chamblee used to charge $2 per rose and now charges much, much more.
I sent J&P an e-mail to complain about the roses they delivered to me, and they responded right away with an offer of replacements or a merchandise credit. I asked for replacements. I really don't want a credit for any J&P merchandise. Today they contacted me to say that they can only replace two of the roses: Raspberry Swirl and Tropical Sun. They have refunded $30.83 to my credit card for the other three roses, which are sold out.
It isn't a perfect solution, but I do appreciate their quick response and prompt action to resolve the matter, and I especially appreciate the refund instead of a merchandise credit.
