Anyone order plants online?

[jloww]

I think I'm going to order everything from my landscaping plan com here to save 75%.  They do come with a guarantee and will probably be a ball of roots.

is this gonna be a win or a fail?

Www.directgardening.com

[sailorgray]

We did Sping Hill Nursery one year. It was cheap and only half of our order came. They said the other part was not good quality, so they refunded our mony. I appreciate their honesty. Most of what we did get were tiny little plants. I am much happier going to our local nursery and getting large plants, flowers, etc. for a few bucks more. I like the instant gratification and seeing the difference right away.

[jloww]

Its hard to pass up instant gratification, but I can get my $300 boxwoods for $30.  Which is pretty tempting.  I'm glad you had a good experience - Ill have to check that site out.

[FoxInFiji]

But it won't be instant gratification. Gardening never is. It takes time for things to fill in, be big enough to bloom, and look good.

Online and catalog plants need to be light to ship so they are bareroots and tiny plants. It will take a lot longer for them to look nice than actual plants from garden centers or plant sales. It look 3 years for my catalog ordered hellebores to bloom and they are tiny. 2 of the 5 came damaged when I opened the bag and they had to send me replacements. Only one of the plants actually has nice blooms.

I would wait and look into area plant sales and swaps (you don't necessarily have to bring a plant). Garden clubs and master gardeners (check local extension office) put them on all over our area particularly in May. The prices are great and the size of the plant is much more than you would get at even a garden center.

$300 in boxwoods?! Those are so easy and cheap to find. You can buy them at big box garden centers come spring and they go on sale in the summer/fall. Normally I don't recommend big box garden centers but if you keep in mind the price you paid and don't get your hopes up if it dies then you'll be OK.

[SusanBAnthony]

I just ordered asparagus online, and was so happy with the price! Then today I went to a local garden center and they were half the online price. Fail! Yet, the online strawberries were a phenomenal deal online, and are already leafing out and very healthy after only 4 days in the ground. So my experience has been hit or miss.

[pitterwoo]

I ordered some trees and shrubs last fall as dormant bareroots. The rhododendron clearly didn't make it, but the others remain to be seen. I'm hopeful because I was able to get so many things really cheap and some which I wouldn't be able to get easily anyway.

[jloww]

I'm going to have to think about It some more I guess. We need 6 green mountain boxwoods and the nursery quoted them at $50 each.

We also need 8 Japanese forest grasses and 4 obsidian coral bells.

Maybe the big box store will be a happy medium? Well see.

We tried to buy on sale in the fall but didn't find anything.

[kaylie]

I got some teeny tiny boxwoods from Lowes for $4 each and I think they have small green mountains for $6.

I ordered Annabelle Hydrangeas from Burpee a week ago, but they won't ship until they're ready to be planted. They were $10 each which is way less than the nursery's $35. They have a satisfaction guarantee, but we'll see how they look when they arrive.

[auntie]

I've done quite a bit of mail order gardening.

I agree with lshoes- it's best reserved for bulbs, perennials and specimens unavailable elsewhere.

I've had the most success with White Flower Farm which isn't exactly a cost cutting move. Spring Hill and Burpee are pretty good too.

There is no instant gratification, what gets shipped is typically very small even if it does come with a rootball. Most of the perennials didn't bloom their first years, some day lilies too several years to settle in and bloom. I've bought a couple trees that arrived looking like dead sticks too small to interest a dog.

[treedimensional]

Apr 11, 2013 20:55:13 GMT -5 jloww said:

Its hard to pass up instant gratification, but I can get my $300 boxwoods for $30.  

Ok, you CAN'T get a $300 boxwood for $30.
You can get a $300 boxwood for $300, or a $30 boxwood for $30. And I promise you, there will be NO MISTAKING which is which.
If you've priced out boxwood at $300, I'd be willing to bet that you were looking at large English boxwoods. English boxwood is NOT CHEAP. It is very SLOW GROWING, and like most slow growing plants, it is very expensive. A $30 English boxwood will be very small. Now, if you don't want to pay that much, and don't care if it's English boxwood, you can get bigger American boxwoods or Korean boxwoods for much less money. American boxwood is fairly common, and Korean boxwood can usually be found at legitimate nurseries.

As for me, I am FAR TOO PICKY to buy these plants sight-unseen. I buy thousands of dollars worth of trees and shrubs every year, and only from reputable nurseries; and still, the overwhelming majority of plants I buy have serious structural defects and root deformities.

[susieq]

Apr 12, 2013 8:45:17 GMT -5 treedimensional said:

Apr 11, 2013 20:55:13 GMT -5 jloww said:

Its hard to pass up instant gratification, but I can get my $300 boxwoods for $30.  

Ok, you CAN'T get a $300 boxwood for $30.
You can get a $300 boxwood for $300, or a $30 boxwood for $30. And I promise you, there will be NO MISTAKING which is which.
If you've priced out boxwood at $300, I'd be willing to bet that you were looking at large English boxwoods. English boxwood is NOT CHEAP. It is very SLOW GROWING, and like most slow growing plants, it is very expensive. A $30 English boxwood will be very small. Now, if you don't want to pay that much, and don't care if it's English boxwood, you can get bigger American boxwoods or Korean boxwoods for much less money. American boxwood is fairly common, and Korean boxwood can usually be found at legitimate nurseries.

As for me, I am FAR TOO PICKY to buy these plants sight-unseen. I buy thousands of dollars worth of trees and shrubs every year, and only from reputable nurseries; and still, the overwhelming majority of plants I buy have serious structural defects and root deformities.

I completely agree with the bold.  If you cannot afford to do it all at once than plant the boxwoods this spring and something else from the plan this fall until you have everything planted.  That way the $$$ you spend will not hurt so much.   A nursery plant will look like something in the ground, a mail order shrub will look tiny and silly for many years!  It takes about three years for transplanted plants to really start growing.  We often say they sleep the first year, creep the second and leap the third.  If you go mail order be prepared to live with a tiny shrub for many years. 

[jloww]

I can't quote you TD and Susieq but thank you.  That's exactly what I needed to know.  The Green Mountain box woods quoted were probably 3 feet tall and pruned in an oval shape.  Ill get those from the nursery then and shop around for the others.