Beginner Gardening: Newbie vegetable gardener needs reassurance about soil, 1 by NancyGroutsis

NancyGroutsis wrote:
Neeshera, I’m so glad you got a refund for the soil even if it is just a partial refund. Basically, the product on the receipt (pulverized loam) is different than the product that was delivered (stones), so you should not have had to pay for it. Loam companies screen rocks out of pulverized soil. When I called my local loam company the receptionist described screened loam as loam that has gone through the process of screening all the rocks, sticks, etc. out so there is nothing but plain loam.

I understand that you need someone right now to plant trees, but if I were you I would start searching for a more honest gardener for the future. And you don’t have to worry about asking me another question, because I’m an MBA student so I’m fine talking about financials and I like to help out with gardening advice because I love to garden and I’m a Capricorn (the teacher of the zodiac).

Regarding the gardener’s $350 fee to deliver and plant 12 evergreens, I would need to know the size of the trees to determine if it’s a fair deal. Last year my family got a 13” emerald green thuja for about $30 (including shipping) from an online store and it took me one minute to plant it with a hand rake. Now it’s over 2 ft. high (first picture). If we had gotten 12 it would have been $203.40 with shipping with the bulk discount/free shipping deal. That is a lot less than the $878 you are considering spending for 12 trees ($528 trees + $350 delivery and planting). How tall are the Home Depot evergreens (and pot size if you have access to that information) and did you get a chance to look at the trees or are you shopping from their online store?

Planting a large tree is much more expensive. My sister paid $600 to plant a human-size cherry tree (including the cost of the tree). Therefore, the $195 (per tree ) price the nursery quoted for the 6 ft. trees seems fair. You can save a lot of money by planting young 1-ft. trees than if you got a human-sized tree, and often the smaller trees grow at a faster rate and look healthier in the long run.

I suggest checking Dave’s Garden Watchdog to find a reputable evergreen tree seller. We got a 10” Hetz Midget shrub from Home Depot that did well, so I guess their evergreens are fine, but for the same price we got a 2 ft. Juniperus chinensis (blue shrub on left side of 1st photo) from a local nursery. I found evergreenplantnursery.com at the Watchdog site, and got several plants from them this year for about $6 each (see the photo of the potted tomb thumb and forsythia). Their big evergreen sale is in the winter, but you can get deals on the Deal of the Day page.

Basically, my advice is to shop around. I’m a medium sized woman who is not very physically fit but I can easily plant a one gallon potted plant in 10 minutes, so my family wouldn’t budget $350 to pick up and plant a dozen 2 ft. trees. However, if you want instant large trees then the gardener’s fee is probably the best deal. Also, when planting trees space them so that there is room for them to grow to maximum size unless you plan to chop down ever other tree in a few years to make room for the others to grow.

Nancy G.