Has anyone out there purchased from them? I have my first house and yard to
plant this year so I am curious about the different mail order catalogs I get.
Thanks in advance for your help. Pat

Don't waste your time with that one. You think the prices are too good to
be true---- you're right.

Over many years I've learned that its better to go slow and buy growing
plants than to try to cut corners with mail order cheap.

Spring Hill has been by far, the worst of the worst.

Sue


--
Breeze ( sue burnham)
"PBarnes149" wrote in message
...
Has anyone out there purchased from them? I have my first house and yard
to
plant this year so I am curious about the different mail order catalogs I
get.
Thanks in advance for your help. Pat

On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:00:31 +0000, PBarnes149 wrote:

Has anyone out there purchased from them? I have my first house and yard
to plant this year so I am curious about the different mail order catalogs
I get.
Thanks in advance for your help. Pat


Where are you located?

Check with your county extension specialist and local master gardeners for
recommendations. There are undoubtedly many good nurseries within a
reasonable drive of your house.

Unless you really are considering specific varieties, starting perennials
from seeds does work. If you start the seeds early enough indoors, you
might even get some blooms same year.

Or contact a wholesaler to see if you can buy by the flat. Split the
flats with friends.

PBarnes149 wrote:

Has anyone out there purchased from them? I have my first house and yard to
plant this year so I am curious about the different mail order catalogs I get.
Thanks in advance for your help. Pat

Before you buy plants mail order, check with www.gardenwatchdog.com.
You can see what other people's experience with the particular vendor
has been.

Suja

PBarnes149 wrote:

Has anyone out there purchased from them? I have my first house and yard to
plant this year so I am curious about the different mail order catalogs I get.
Thanks in advance for your help. Pat

Before you buy plants mail order, check with www.gardenwatchdog.com.
You can see what other people's experience with the particular vendor
has been.

Suja

"PBarnes149" wrote in message
...
Has anyone out there purchased from them? I have my first
house and yard to
plant this year so I am curious about the different mail order
catalogs I get.
Thanks in advance for your help. Pat

It helps to know where you are from (we don't need an address,
just a general area;-). Someone may be able to recommend
something from your neighborhood.

Generally speaking you will almost always be better off buying
from a NURSERY in your area. By "nursery" I do NOT mean, Lowes,
Home Depot, Wal-Mart, K-Mart and others of that ilk. They're
fine for annuals, etc., and topsoil, gravel, pavers, etc. but I'd
avoid them for landscape plants. You never know how far the
plants they carry have traveled before they reach the X-mart lot.
Nor do you know the USDA climate zone their little genes have
acclimatized themselves to.

Local nurseries are more likely to buy their plants from
suppliers in the same USDA zone (or within a zone or two either
way). This means the plants should survive in your area. A GOOD
local nursery will also offer a guarantee -- and a *really* good
nursery will honor the guarantee even if it was your idiocy that
caused the plant to die. :-) Local nurseries also are more
likely to carry plants that are NATIVE to your area. Some may
even specialize in natives. And, for the same money (especially
when shipping is factored in) you will ALWAYS get a larger plant
locally.

All that said, I have bought and been happy with plants from
Wayside Gardens, White Flower Farm, and Parks (which, I think,
owns Wayside). All are quite a ways north of me, but their
plants did OK here -- perhaps taking a year or two longer to
adjust than a local nursery's might have done.

We are very lucky in having several excellent -- and large --
nurseries in our town, including one that specializes in North
Florida native plants, so I mostly just drool over the pictures
in the catalogs, then see what I can find locally. Most of our
local nurseries get their plants from a huge wholesaler who grows
on 1,000 acres a few miles north of me across the line in the
state of Georgia. So I KNOW these plants are ready!

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Only where
people have learned to appreciate and cherish the landscape and
its living cover will they treat it with the care and respect it
should have - Paul Bigelow Sears.

Xref: kermit rec.gardens:262843

I had to landscape an entire yard for our new house last year. I saved
money by growing a lot of stuff from seed. Also check out local fundraising
plant sales and swaps in your area, your local hortacultural assn. probably
has a list. Apart from the mail order places that other people have
mentioned, I had good luck with Gilbert H. Wild, www.gilberthwild.com They
have great deals on large numbers of plants, like their 50 hostas for 50
dollars, 100 hosta for 100 dollars. They don't have every plant known to
mankind but they concentrate on daylillies, hostas, oriental lillies, iris
and peonys for good prices. Those kind of perennials are the tough,
rewarding kind that will form the backbone of a garden in almost any zone.

mm

"Jim Lewis" wrote in message
...

"PBarnes149" wrote in message
...
Has anyone out there purchased from them? I have my first
house and yard to
plant this year so I am curious about the different mail order
catalogs I get.
Thanks in advance for your help. Pat

It helps to know where you are from (we don't need an address,
just a general area;-). Someone may be able to recommend
something from your neighborhood.

Generally speaking you will almost always be better off buying
from a NURSERY in your area. By "nursery" I do NOT mean, Lowes,
Home Depot, Wal-Mart, K-Mart and others of that ilk. They're
fine for annuals, etc., and topsoil, gravel, pavers, etc. but I'd
avoid them for landscape plants. You never know how far the
plants they carry have traveled before they reach the X-mart lot.
Nor do you know the USDA climate zone their little genes have
acclimatized themselves to.

Local nurseries are more likely to buy their plants from
suppliers in the same USDA zone (or within a zone or two either
way). This means the plants should survive in your area. A GOOD
local nursery will also offer a guarantee -- and a *really* good
nursery will honor the guarantee even if it was your idiocy that
caused the plant to die. :-) Local nurseries also are more
likely to carry plants that are NATIVE to your area. Some may
even specialize in natives. And, for the same money (especially
when shipping is factored in) you will ALWAYS get a larger plant
locally.

All that said, I have bought and been happy with plants from
Wayside Gardens, White Flower Farm, and Parks (which, I think,
owns Wayside). All are quite a ways north of me, but their
plants did OK here -- perhaps taking a year or two longer to
adjust than a local nursery's might have done.

We are very lucky in having several excellent -- and large --
nurseries in our town, including one that specializes in North
Florida native plants, so I mostly just drool over the pictures
in the catalogs, then see what I can find locally. Most of our
local nurseries get their plants from a huge wholesaler who grows
on 1,000 acres a few miles north of me across the line in the
state of Georgia. So I KNOW these plants are ready!

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Only where
people have learned to appreciate and cherish the landscape and
its living cover will they treat it with the care and respect it
should have - Paul Bigelow Sears.

"PBarnes149" wrote in message
...
Has anyone out there purchased from them? I have my first house and yard
to
plant this year so I am curious about the different mail order catalogs I
get.
Thanks in advance for your help. Pat

Spring Hill has a bad reputation, some of it earned and some due to
ignorance, in my opinion. They were taken over several years ago by a
company that had poor customer service and many people had problems with
their orders - some not receiving plants in a timely manner and some
receiving poor quality stock. The other issue with them is that they show
mature plants in the catalog but ship very small plants. There is nothing
wrong with starting with small plants, but some people were mislead by the
pictures despite the descriptions that indicated that the plants were very
small.

About two years ago the parent company went bankrupt and sold off Spring
Hill to a group of employees. Since then I believe that the level of
customer service has improved. I live close to their facility and visit
often. The plants they sell are quite nice, if small, there is a good
selection, and the price is fair.

If you are looking for perennials or bare root roses or trees, I would
recommend them. Don't expect to get five, gallon size hostas for $3. You
will get small, bare root plants. The perennials will come in very small
pots or cell packs.

Another good source for plants by mail is Bluestone Perennials
(www.bluestoneperennials.com) I have also been to their facility in NE
Ohio, and have bought their plants by mail. They have excellent customer
service and healthy plants. However, the plants will be very small, but by
year two, the will have caught-up with the larger, more expensive plants
that you can get at the local nursery. The plants that Bluestone sells are
the same size as those sold by Spring Hill.

If you are in the vicinity, I would recommend that you visit Spring Hill's
display gardens and store near the junction of I70 and I75 in Ohio (near
Dayton). Here is a link to some pictures that I took:
http://groups.msn.com/laurelridgegar...pringhill.msnw

"mmarteen" wrote in message ...
I had to landscape an entire yard for our new house last year. I saved
money by growing a lot of stuff from seed. Also check out local fundraising
plant sales and swaps in your area, your local hortacultural assn. probably
has a list. Apart from the mail order places that other people have
mentioned, I had good luck with Gilbert H. Wild, www.gilberthwild.com They
have great deals on large numbers of plants, like their 50 hostas for 50
dollars, 100 hosta for 100 dollars. They don't have every plant known to
mankind but they concentrate on daylillies, hostas, oriental lillies, iris
and peonys for good prices. Those kind of perennials are the tough,
rewarding kind that will form the backbone of a garden in almost any zone.

mm


This is certainly true here in SE MI. It is a pity that I spent so
much money and time when I started my house here in 1996 (having moved
from California, I had no idea what worked here). Almost everything I
bought failed, and a;most everything I got (except oriental lilies and
coneflower grown from seed) I have transplanted from the woods around
the house, or from the backyard to the front yard. It did help that
the previous owner next door was a true gardener, and that three
successive owners had left a Micronesia of small beds over my two
acres.

The plants I found in large quantities (more than 100 plants) in the
woods or along fencerows or in the ditch were lamium, lily of the
valley, scilla, daylilies, forsythia, and bloodroot. I inherited lots
of vincas, some ostrich ferns and bags of iris corms from various
friends who were moving. I moved some peonies and about two hundred
daffs from the front yard to the backyard. Again, I only added a few
dozens oriental lilies, some houttunya, and several clusters of
seed-grown coneflowers. Nature has since done the rest, with all
plants propagating themselves (by now they have tripled in numbers at
least), clearly being well adapted to the partial sun/ open shade that
dominates around my house. This year I will add some blackeyed susans
in the sunniest spots and then I will be done. I plant a tray of
impatiens in containers under the windows every year. All these plants
have taken one foot of wood chips in the past, and a layer of leaves
every year, but are otherwise not watered or fertilized at all.

"mmarteen" wrote in message ...
I had to landscape an entire yard for our new house last year. I saved
money by growing a lot of stuff from seed. Also check out local fundraising
plant sales and swaps in your area, your local hortacultural assn. probably
has a list. Apart from the mail order places that other people have
mentioned, I had good luck with Gilbert H. Wild, www.gilberthwild.com They
have great deals on large numbers of plants, like their 50 hostas for 50
dollars, 100 hosta for 100 dollars. They don't have every plant known to
mankind but they concentrate on daylillies, hostas, oriental lillies, iris
and peonys for good prices. Those kind of perennials are the tough,
rewarding kind that will form the backbone of a garden in almost any zone.

mm


This is certainly true here in SE MI. It is a pity that I spent so
much money and time when I started my house here in 1996 (having moved
from California, I had no idea what worked here). Almost everything I
bought failed, and a;most everything I got (except oriental lilies and
coneflower grown from seed) I have transplanted from the woods around
the house, or from the backyard to the front yard. It did help that
the previous owner next door was a true gardener, and that three
successive owners had left a Micronesia of small beds over my two
acres.

The plants I found in large quantities (more than 100 plants) in the
woods or along fencerows or in the ditch were lamium, lily of the
valley, scilla, daylilies, forsythia, and bloodroot. I inherited lots
of vincas, some ostrich ferns and bags of iris corms from various
friends who were moving. I moved some peonies and about two hundred
daffs from the front yard to the backyard. Again, I only added a few
dozens oriental lilies, some houttunya, and several clusters of
seed-grown coneflowers. Nature has since done the rest, with all
plants propagating themselves (by now they have tripled in numbers at
least), clearly being well adapted to the partial sun/ open shade that
dominates around my house. This year I will add some blackeyed susans
in the sunniest spots and then I will be done. I plant a tray of
impatiens in containers under the windows every year. All these plants
have taken one foot of wood chips in the past, and a layer of leaves
every year, but are otherwise not watered or fertilized at all.