Buying plants by mail or at a local nursery is one of the great joys of gardening. Here are some suggestions on being an Intelligent customer
Old Gardener’s Rule #1:
In gardening and growing plants, perhaps more than in anything else, first quality makes for happiness. For every dollar spent on a plant, you spend hours of work and weeks or months of waiting. If you are successful you will have many days and perhaps decades of enjoyment.
A wise old experienced landscaper or gardener knows that this doesn’t always mean “higher price, better plant.” But you have to be very experienced to tell a real bargain from a waste of money. Here are a few pointers on saving money while still maintaining quality standards.
Buy small plants of line quality from good nurseries and grow them to large size yourself. This practice applies particularly to trees and shrubs, and while it takes time, in many instances it is sound economy.
Buy Well-Known, High Quality
Buy well-known, high quality varieties that have been “in commerce,” as the saying goes, for a long time. Old varieties may sell for far less than some of the newer varieties, but unless you are a collector intent on something very different you can be well satisfied with it. Sometimes a new variety will be such a great improvement over existing varieties that it is no longer practical to consider the older varieties, although this rarely happens. Whether you buy old or new, first or top quality is of utmost importance.
First quality is an indefinite term of many meanings. In general it means stock (or seeds) grown under the best prescribed conditions, healthy, free of disease or insects and plants of recognized value. This does not mean that the variety must be new and expensive. One can often get great bargains in beauty for the garden by selecting the medal winners of past years, scarce when first introduced, but now in full supply and at a fraction of their original cost. The chances are that they will still be considered as beautiful as when first introduced.”
Buy at the Right Time
Buy plants, roots, corms and bulbs at the right time, the left-over, poor quality bulbs that have deteriorated from storage in a warm store. (Moral: Better avoid “bargains” until you are experienced enough to be a judge of quality.) Mail-order nurseries ship material to you at the proper planting time for your locality, but they like to receive your order early so they can reserve the varieties you want and do not have to make substitutions. By ordering in advance of the planting season you will discover that you will have more time to think about your order than if you wait until the rush of gardening activity begins.
In summary, buying quality plants is always a true economy. As you become more and more experienced, you begin to learn about plant specialists, (see Old Gardener’s Rule #2): the famous iris growers; the seed houses that carry on extensive breeding programs to provide a wide choice of new and improved annuals, and the nurseries that have a large selection of roses and shrubs.
Old Gardener’s Rule #2:
Learn which things to buy in which places. It takes experience, but here are some pointers to guide you.
If you are fortunate enough to live near a good nursery or a garden center, you can buy a large variety of nursery stock and take it home in your car. In that case, knowing some of the standards worked out by nursery association’s will often help you buy intelligently.
Do your shopping early in the season (usually before you think you should!), and either early in the morning or on a rainy Saturday when the crowd stays home. By doing this you will find that your nurseryman will have more time to answer questions and show you a wide choice of plants. If you wait until a sunny Saturday afternoon in the middle of April when everyone in town is crowding the parking lot, you’ll have to make most of the decisions by yourself.
Besides offering a good selection of plants, you will find garden centers excellent sources for hand and power tools, sprays and dusts, plant foods, and other garden equipment. The general roadside stand selling fruit, vegetables and, some nursery stock is likely not to offer top-quality plant materials because they have been neglected and not properly cared for while on display. It takes an experienced nurseryman to know about proper shading, watering, and care of living or dormant plants and bulbs.
If your nursery doesn’t have a wide selection of new lilacs, dwarf fruits, chrysanthemums or whatever else you may like (and many times that is the case), then you may find yourself making more purchases online or by mail order.
As a regular reader you is no doubt are aware that more kinds of plants, more choice of varieties both old and new, can be bought by mail or online than any other way. To get a good representation of out-of-the-ordinary items in a garden much purchasing must be done by mail. It should be encouraged. The old-fashioned mail-order (online) tradition of America is at its liveliest and most colorful in the pages of garden catalogs.
The buyer, always looking for something for nothing, can’t resist snatching at a ‘bargain.’ It is the venal as well as the naive buyer who encourage the pitchmen to hawk ‘blue rose,’ the ‘frozen maidens of the north’ and ‘thousands of blossoms all summer long. I don’t know how to protect you from this unless you believe in miracles and partly from a greediness allowing you to be taken in.
Also: plants are variable things. Customers can kill plants more easily than they can ruin an car, without protest from the plant. More than one nurseryman has been unjustly blamed by a customer who was too quick to condemn.
Ordering by Mail
If you are ordering by mail… Clearly enter your full name and give your full address, spelling out your state’s name. (Always use the same name when inquiring about your order or when reordering. If you consider for a moment, you can realize that using initials one time and full name another is just like having two different names!) This may seem like idle advice, but every day nurseries receive orders without names, unsigned checks and even signed checks with the amount blank! Remember that all too often in handwriting Penn. looks like Tenn., and that “Millersburg” may be a town in fifteen different states!
Actually it is best to order online or print your name. In any event be sure that your i’s, e’s, u’s, m’s, n’s and w’s are clearly distinguishable, not just by you but by someone who has never seen you or your handwriting. Every letter in a name is important for alphabetical filing, and first names are just as important as last names. Remember it may not be the nurserymen’s fault if your plants never arrive!
If you live on an route you have some responsibility to check your mail box daily about the time the mail is delivered, as a shipper can hardly be responsible for frozen shipments when they are left in a mail box for long periods.
If substitutions of varieties are acceptable to you, tell the nurserymen so, and give your alternate choices. If you want no substitutions, for those times when they run out of a certain bulb or plant, say so. If you leave the substitution choice up to the nurseryman he will select the closest possible variety to the one you ordered.
Keep records and act on them in the future. Perhaps as happened to countless gardeners, your favorite primrose source sent plants out too early one season. If you keep a record of this the following year you can specify your planting date.
Keep track of what you order. All too often firms get a letter saying “Please send me the same bulbs I ordered last year.” Most nurseries do not have those same plants – it is up to you.
Ready to Plant
Have the ground thoroughly and properly prepared for planting before the plants arrive if this is at all possible. Open packages immediately on arrival, check the contents for quantity and condition, and then either plant immediately or else heel-in or otherwise store the materials properly until planting can be done.
Collect catalogs and other material as part of your library of useful gardening information. Set aside a shelf or a file drawer for these fascinating guideposts that most veteran gardeners learn to love. A charge is made for some catalogs; it is usually low compared to the convenience of having the information at your fingertips.
If you are beginning to enjoy special plants, join a plant society. Many issue a special buying guide issued by a plant society. Perhaps the most notable of all plant society ratings is that for roses, conducted by the American Rose Society.
Watch the commercial ratings and guideposts to plant selection. Probably no better example of intelligent consumer information can be found than the All-America Selections for flower and vegetable seeds, roses and gladiolus. All-America ratings help the average gardener in all sections of the country by listing varieties which have been professionally rated in regional test gardens. AAS selections deserve the publicity they receive. The supply of seeds, plants, or corms, as the case may be, is balanced against anticipated demand, and thus prices for the All-America Selections are kept within reason.
Again there is no easy way but there are stepping stones to guide you and we have summarized here and more will follow in coming post.
