Ordering Plants Online – Delivery At Last!

Ordering Plants Online – How They Arrive

It’s one thing ordering plants online in the depths of winter, but then you have to wait for spring before they arrive. Most of my plants have now arrived and it’s been an interesting experience to see how they show up. Since there is no door to door postal delivery service in our little town, three of the boxes landed up at the post office over several days, even though they were UPS. I discovered that they have a deal with the postal service. Luckily I live just across the road from the post office and am inclined to check my post regularly, or at least one of my deliveries would have been dead by the time it reached me.

Bare Roots And Bulbs

The first two boxes were lighter than I expected, as I thought at least some of the plants would come in little pots, but they were all dormant perennials and bare rooted is obviously a more space and cost effective way of transporting them. These boxes contained bulbs and bare root plants.

I unpacked my boxes and checked all my goodies which all seemed to be in good order. The bulbs were plump and firm and I was delighted to see Trumpet lilies, Green lilies and a Flame Lily huddled together in their separate bags, cushioned extravagantly with air filled packets.

The Echinacea roots were juicy but the Geraniums looked just like sticks and I would probably have added them to the compost heap if I’d seen them out of context (or if I’d had a compost heap). On closer inspection, however, I could see little shoots sprouting out the sides of the sticks, looking quite chirpy, and the sticks themselves looked fresh so I’m sure they’ll be fine. Actually, once I’d finished unpacking them I had a couple of extras to plant as little bits had broken off during transportation and even they had little shoots sprouting.

The drawback of receiving plants this way is that it’s hard to design a bed well when you can’t see the plants. I popped one after the other into the ground and they all but disappeared except for the tiny Echinacea sprouts. I still have little idea of how they will look once they have grown and yesterday I almost dug up one of my geraniums whilst finding a spot for my little orange Osteospermum. That taught me to mark all hidden plants (if I can just find them)! My more creative husband suggested I draw a plan for the bed before planting which would have been a great suggestion if I hadn’t just finished tucking them all away already!

Potted Plants

Then a couple of days later a bigger box was waiting for me at the post office and inside it was more extravagant packaging and a little plant nestled in a tiny pot in another box. This was a big surprise as I had been expecting a much larger plant and already had a big pot ready for my multi colored hibiscus. There was another surprise in store, however, because when I was repotting the little treasure, it turned out to be three little treasures instead – three little plants in one pot that I thought would be three plants grafted together! I may have got the size wrong through not reading the description properly, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t order three little rooted cuttings. So, shall I plant them as one or have three different colored bushes? Decisions, decisions. I’ll go with one for now and see how it pans out. I must say, the packaging was impressive. I felt like I’d received flowers from a florist. Only the card was missing.

Yesterday, more plants I had ordered online were delivered straight to my door by Fedex. Obviously these plants had to be delivered faster because they were seedlings in tiny little pots. I’m excited because they’re Russel Lupines which I’ve never grown before.

A couple of them looked a bit bedraggled, I suspect because they’d been roasting on my porch for a couple of hours before anyone noticed them, but they’d been well protected and am sure they’ll make a full recovery. I popped them into my little greenhouse for the night to recover and then planted them out this morning.

I have had to put cages around the seedlings because something in my garden loves eating my seedling leaves whole, so it’s not a snail. I used some gopher cages I bought some time ago but never used, inverted them and stuck them into the ground with pins. Hopefully that will deter all but the most determined seedling muncher.

So now I only have two packages to go and then my summer garden will be virtually set. In the meantime, however, I have planted seeds of Opium poppies, Sun Flowers, California poppies and Columbines and have nowhere to put them when they’re big enough to plant out. I had to erect a quick climbing frame at the back of my bath bed yesterday so that I could plant out some Sweet Pea seedlings I’d raised. I’ll have to give the rest of them to my neighbors.

Ordering Plants Online – Conclusion

So, while the ultimate thrill is visiting a nursery and finding that special plant, finding and ordering plants online is easy and all my plants, save a few stragglers, have been delivered safe and sound and sort of within the promised time frame. Because of the cold snap in March, some of the deliveries had to be delayed by a few days. The only word of caution I have is stick to your budget and don’t order more plants than you have places for. So, watch this space and I’ll show you when everything is flowering.

Happy gardening and please don’t forget your sunscreen. There’s so much skin cancer about, you must protect your skin.

By the way, here is a link to a list of gopher resistant plants: http://www.groundcoversandgardening.com/gopher resistant plants.

If you want to buy plants that deer probably won’t eat, look here.

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