Hi Dan,

It is usually not advised to plant perennials now. You can buy some,
keep them in their original pot, and wait until the fall when it is
cooler to plant them. The argument is that summer heat is stressful
enough, heat and transplanting can be too stressful for the plant (maybe
if you played soothing music to the plant it might help..ha ha).
Anyway, that being said, I have often gone to local nurseries late in
the summer b/c the plants are on sale. Most of the nurseries near me
have clearance sales starting in August. Sure, the selection isn't as
good, but the prices are great. Last year, we had a super hot summer in
NC, and a record drought. I bought some clearance perennials, and
disregarding all advice, I planted them right away in the heat, and only
gave my new plants minimal water once a week. They all survived. If
you don't mind being on email lists, I sign up for email updates from my
local nurseries. They always send out notices when the plants are going
on sale. I look forward to the "all perennials 50% off" emails!

This link was posted earlier, it is a review of plant mail order
catalogues/websites: http://plantsbymail.net/.

I have purchased from White Flower Farms and Blue Stone Perennials. My
experience has been okay, w/ both, however I find the price of the
plants and shipping just isn't worth it. Most mail order plants are
very young and tender, I think it is a better deal to pay a hair more at
a local nursery for a more mature plant--you'll get more immediate
results w/ mature plants. I have been lucky enough to find a couple of
local nurseries that sell wholesale to the public. Since I live in NC,
this doesn't help much, except to say that hopefully someone in your
neck of the woods might know of some wholesalers near you. You might
try looking in the phonebook or doing a websearch for wholesale
nurseries in your area, and calling to see if they will sell to the
public. One word of caution, I don't know if this is common for all
wholesalers, but the ones around here are not staffed to help the
public. It makes sense, it just means you need to plan ahead before you
go w/ a list of all your plants, including scientific names. One
wholesaler in our area does not even have name tags on any plants, so if
you go you need to be able to ID a plant yourself. However, the other
wholesalers do have plants sorted w/ nametags, alphabetized by sci.
name. The tags have no pictures or descriptions, so you really need to
know what you want, what variety, etc... It is helpful to bring a
perennial book along, or a master gardener friend.

Your selections sounds great!
Heidi



Danno wrote:

Hello all-
I'm interested in planting an English Garden for my wife on the side of our
house.
I live in New Jersey and the side of my home gets about Sun about 1/2 of the
day.

Here are some of the plants I've been looking at-
Yarrow (comes in a variety of colours)
Hollyhock( again,a vaiety to choose from)
Lady's Mantle
Boltonia
Snow in Summer
Perennial flax
Delphinium "Pacific Hybrids"
Dianthus
Bellflower
Foxglove
Lavender
Candytuft
Shasta Daisy
Lupin
Canterbury Bells
Peony
Sea Thrift
Forget-Me-Not
Siberian Iris
Fairy Thimble


Question-- what's the best place to buy perennials? can you do it on-line?

- is it too late in the season to plant these??

Thanks,
Dan