Funny, I was just talking with Second Boss In Command today about having those hands-on seminars! Yes, we've already got that idea swirling around in the think-tank. :)
Today I placed all the orders that are available for annuals/herbs/veggies etc, including my order with Bill for Caladiums - tomorrow I tackle the order for statuary and such neato things. Phheeewwwww, this is FUN! =)
What Sorts of Pots Do You Prefer?
Phheeewwwww, this is FUN! =)
Basically, spending somebody else's money, that WOULD be fun
8 ^D
I'd get myself all stressed out thinking it all would never sell, I could never do that!
It'll sell double quick on the days Speedie is working... "Oh, and if you're looking for a great accent, just wait until you see the birdbaths we just got in... I was so excited to find these at our vendor this spring!" etc Things will fly out the door. :-)
I agree, we need to have a "DG day" at the nursery, Speedie! Hey, maybe Bossman would be willing to give us a discount that day, the way Mike is doing at Dutch Plant Farm for our seed swap...
Speedie, it sure does sound like a lot of fun deciding on all the things to order for the nursery! I'd also love to join in on a DG day there.
Speedie, Where is your nursery? Ric and I are quite often up for a road trip. LOL
Beyond birdbaths: Speedie, another way to draw in more customers would be to make your nursery more of a one-stop shopping place for the many gardeners who spend money on feathered friends.
I like being able to pick up bird seed and suet along with my plants, dirt, etc., and I would buy bird houses, feeders, poles, baffles, etc. at garden centers if they stocked good ones.
Quality plant supports would also sell well. I sometimes go to a particular garden center near me because they carry my favorite type of plant supports.
I will remember to ask Boss about a DG day, that would be sooooo awesome!!!
We have discussed the "one stop shop" in length, and we both totally agree Muddy. One thing I KNOW we need are "plant rings", in a few different sizes. I've already been eyeing them up in the catalog for my order today. (by the way, what are your favourite type of plant supports, please??) =)
Critter, thank you, that's so sweet of you to say!! < =D But you know me very well, I get all excited about stuff and can't help but GUSH to customers! LOL!!
The name of the place is currently Winter Landscape Maintenance, LLC. (the road-side sign still reads "Longwood Nursery", but that is going to have to change at some point). We have yet to figure out how we are going to incorporate the word "Nursery" into the new verbiage.
Holly, (not 'advertising' here, just answering a question!), we are in Waldorf MD, at the corner of Rt. 5-southbound and Billingsley Road. (Rt. 5 is also known as Leonardtown Road). We're at the NorthWest corner.
And now, time to hit the shower; I get to be an even Earlier Girl than usual today, start time: 7:30. Wheee!!!
Have a great day y'all, I'll check back in later!
I like and use a lot of the green plastic coated single loop plant stakes in different heights, mostly for individual peony flowers (works much better than the traditional peony hoop ring) and lilies. I used to only be able to find them on line, but the big box stores started carrying them a few years ago. With that green plastic coating, they last year after year.
I've posted this picture of peonies numerous times for various topics - this time it is related to the single loop plant stakes that I am talking about. Each flower is held up by one. They are so unobtrusive that you can't even see them - look really close at the two flowers right below the outstretched arm (her left, but on the right looking at pic). Look how nice it keeps the flowers upright - which traditionally is a big problem with peonies!
This message was edited Feb 25, 2014 6:49 AM
Speedie, you own a nursery?
Just checked the route to Waldorf MD, about 2 hours from here. We've been talking about a road trip to Annapolis and DC. Our calendar is filling up, but who knows where we may end up. One of our destinations has always been Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, it just so happens our GH club is taking a bus trip there. A friend when I was in the service (about a hundred years ago) told me about how wonderful it was, and I've always wanted to see it. Hopefully we'll get an insider tour. We visited Mt. Cuba last year, http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1298702/?hl=Mt.+Cuba and got the nickel tour of their environmentally controlled GH system. I thought heating a GH was tough, but they had one with AC.
2014 Maryland House and Garden Pilgrimage includes Calvert County near Speedie and the PG County tour looks good, too.
http://www.mhgp.org/
William Paca House tour and plant sale Mothers Day weekend
Wow Ric, thank you for the link to the Mt. Cuba visit thread, some gorgeous photos there, makes me want to visit it! Jan, you live that near it and hadn't been there? Have you yet? Seems like a must-see place.
Yeah, we're a bit of a long-haul down this'a'way. Would definitely have to be a planned road-trip for most of y'all.
Hmmm... speaking of living near places and not visiting... I've yet to do the MHGP. Shame on me!
Terri, the plant loops you are talking about are a must-have for sure! I've got them on the list of stuff to order; to me, they are a 'staple'. Thank you for posting that pic, I don't think I'd seen it before... how I missed it, I dunno. WOW it's gorgeous, and I LOVE that statue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yep, we DEFINITELY need those plant supports... I'll need to buy some myself for my own paeony! :) (my first one, installed end of last summer, and I think it's surviving the winter just fine, whee!)
Ooops! Edited 'cause I forgot to answer Sequoia's question, sorry about that! No Sir, I just work at one and am doing my best to help out the new owner. I guess I sorta just "ended up" being the SPAS (I like to pronounce it "spazz", heehee): "Senior Product Acquisition Specialist". Haahaahahahaaa!!!!!!! (trying to feel more important than I really am). ;)
This message was edited Feb 25, 2014 5:51 PM
I'm really familiar with Waldorf - it is close to where I work, and many of my coworkers live there. Hope we are able to swing a DG get together there this year.
I visited Mt Cuba a few years ago and absolutely loved it - my gardening style and an inspiration for my gardening efforts. I've been wanting to get back there ever since. Wish I had the time to visit it several times a year just to experience what they having blooming each month.
Aspenhill, I love that angel statue too..and the stakes are pretty much invisible; if I hadn't known what you were talking about, I wouldn't have spotted them! I have some of those myself.
Here is a link that shows my favorite support "system": http://www.hardtofinditems.com/peacock-plant-supports
What I particularly like is that I can raise the supports as the plants grow by moving the coupler higher on the stake. http://www.hardtofinditems.com/peacock-garden_plant-stake-with-adjustable-coupler-40.html
Ric and I are thinking along the same lines, I too googled and found out that it is about a 2 hour trip and very doable for us.
Terri, Speedie, I use those same plant supports, I use them for my Iris and I just love them.
speedie--
HD carries these wire loop supports. 98 cents each.
I use them in supporting my tall-growing Oriental and Regale Lilies.
Never thought of using these to support the Peony blooms.
Only thing i would worry about using them on Peonies is that sticking that many
wire supports all around the peony would damage some of the roots.
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Garden-Zone-18-in-Plant-Prop-611872/1005844
Give me a ballpark time frame from Baltimore to Waldorf.
Holly and Tic are a bit over an hour's drive for me. If they can get to Waldorf
in 2 hours--then it should not be more than an hour for me. My daughter went to
St. Mary's College and that trip for us was about 2-1/2 hrs. Hmmm.....
Looks like Calvert Co. is a long, skinny stretch down-a-ways...
Ric--How on earth will you get there in one hour???? Of course--I did not find
Waldorf when i was just looking....
G.
Wow Speedie, that sounds like my dream job! I work full time as a purchasing manager, how much greater would it be to buy plants for a nursery!
?? Took me over an hour to get from Millersville to Waldorf- if it was closer I would go more often (than once)
When I went to Sally's for the Plant Swap (last year?) it took just shy of 1 1/2 hours to get there... of course, I drive like Grandma and toward the end I was driving really slowly to make sure I didn't miss a turn, being totally unfamiliar with the area. So, from my house (20 miles south of Waldorf), 1 1/3 hours to Sally's. Does that help you Gita? :)
Sequoia, yeah, it is actually turning out to be pretty fun to be the spazz, but a little stressful too 'cause there's just SO MUCH that needs to be ordered in such a short period of time! Once things level out I'm sure it will get funner.
Muddy, thank you, I will be looking for those supports! Actually, I have another tab open to my vendor already (heehee) and I don't see the Peacock brand on there at all, but I will look for something as close as possible to it that I can find. The 'system' looks like a really great idea to me. Is it easy to figure out how to use? I'm just thinking - there are people who don't want something too confusing or something they have to "think about" to figure it out. Not all are "real" gardeners like us, they want something simple, "don't make me think!!" ;)
Sally is about 30-40 minutes from my house. So--to get to you, Speedie, would be
well over 2 hours--and I DO NOT drive like a G-Mother...
Doable--if a group of us are planning to go...especially, if we do it in spring--
nice sunny drive through S. MD....an area I have seldom been through.
G.
SPAZZZZZ. I LOVE it!
Hanging head in shame.....still haven't been to Mt. Cuba. Some day.
lol Jan, you could make it your first stop on your cross country trip this summer!
Distance isn't so far but road to Waldorf is like a divided boulevard with l o n g blocks in between stop lights/ intersections, so the appearance of shorter travel times. Gita, if you met up with Sally before turning onto Brightview you would cut about ten min off travel time. Once on 3/301 should be around an hour to Waldorf (further to Speedies house)
Well---I will deal with this IF we are actually going....
G.
Well, if/when y'all decide, I will make sure to have lots of goodies that y'all want! =) The little SPAZZ has been hard at work putting orders together - got lots of hoop plant support thingies, ... gosh, I don't remember, it was four pages worth of stuff!! Went over everything one-by-one with the boss this afternoon; some ideas are "on hold" to see how stuff sells, some stuff was "must-have". I made SURE though that there are wheeled pot stands, and plenty of saucers for the pots - plain terra cotta ones, and lots to match the pots that are to be ordered.
Pheewww, this shopping for a living makes one tired! ;)
Speedie (or should I say Spazz?): The plant supports are really easy to use, much easier than similar ones I've tried (e.g., the ones where you have to figure out how to space 4 legs that support a grow-through hoop).
Speedie, I went to a garden show at the Baltimore Convention Center a couple of years ago. It was right across the street from my office and I just walked in during lunch. It turned out to be a garden supply show with vendors selling to retailers everything imaginable for gardens and gardening. I am not sure if that show is in Baltimore every year. You may want to watch the event calendar for this year to see if the show is here this summer: http://www.bccenter.org/events.php?page=all
You may find things for your store.
Muddy, I'm sure with the new Boss I'll get to be exposed to new vendors, so I'll stay on the lookout for the Peacock supports; for now, I just had to go with what I could find from our current vendor. I chose a couple different types - adjustable and non-adjustable. We don't want to over-do it with stock until we see what actually moves.
Donner, THANK YOU for that tip, I will bookmark that page, and "sign up" so I can get regular updates on what's going on up there. Those "shows" are SUPER helpful!! Never got to go to any of the expos or shows with the previous ownership of the business (those shows were treated more like "fun trips" rather than business) ... but.. well,.. we just won't 'go there'! ;)
I find it hard to shell out $ for supports, because I see them and think of various ways I could DIY something similar.... which of course I don't get around to, so I have a lot of floppy plants!
I like the tomato cages I've seen the past couple of years that have been sprayed in bright colors (sort of a rubbery substance, not just rustoleum but not powder-coated either). I'm using some for my Hibiscuses (Hibiscii ?).
I like them, too.
Speedie et al, I found this article very interesting. "The Future of Perennial Plant Breeding"
http://www.greenhousegrower.com/varieties/the-future-of-perennial-breeding/
That was a very helpful and interesting article Judy, thank you! That "self-proclaimed contrarian", Mr. Avent, is right; we NEED tall!! Gotta have the tall plants to give depth to the garden, or area. Tall is an absolute must!
I digress:
Regarding plant supports. Here is a tip I always considered sending to Fine Gardening, but I just haven't. If I see one of you guys send it in and it gets the winning tip, I'm comin' after you! Haha, I kid... sorta.
I live within sight of my local voting station. Many of those plastic elect So-and-so yard signs get abandoned after the elections and it used to irritate me to no end. Now I love them and scavenge them all because when you pull the plastic part off, it's just a metal frame. This metal frame develops a nice rust colored patina very quickly and becomes practically invisible behind the plants. I bend them into all kinds of shapes and they are very sturdy.
I'm talking about the signs that look like this:
http://images.uprinting.com/article_pages/political-yard-signs-02.jpg
So maybe not quite as fancy as you guys use. But FREE! :) If anyone wants me to grab up some for them, this is an election year!
We gather them up, too. They are great for row covers in the Veggie Garden.
Holly, you are so smart! :)
Holly, how do you use them that way? Do you use them to hold up the covering material, or just lay the signs face down along the row? Haahahhaaaa! OK, just kidding about that second part... I think. ;)
great idea!
It was really Ric's idea, he does most of the Veggie Garden stuff. He takes off all the paper so he just has the frame and then drapes the row cover over the lined up frames.
That is absolutely brilliant! (though sometimes I think I'd rather just bury some of those faces on those signs in my mud!) ;)
That is brilliant ! I pull up forgotten voting and real estate signs, but I've been throwing them in the trash. Re-purposing sounds great.
It is a free source of fairly good quality easy to work wire, if you go out the day after election day it's cool. I think they're supposed to be down within 24-48 hours anyway. I never thought of bending the individual flower supports though, I'm going to design a jig to make it easier, I'm always trying to save the hands.
Speedie, It's much more satisfying to put the politicians in the manure compost. Most of them are full of it anyway.LOL
This message was edited Mar 1, 2014 9:40 AM