Mail order PNW?

Is there a PNW mail order nursery you would recommend ?

My friend uses Northwoods and also Colvos Creek Nursery.

What are you looking for in particular, Mary?

Lots of growers specialize in certain plants or are you looking for general stuff like a garden center?

Looking for a good selection of periennials; nothing in particular. Altho, I am trying to schedule a trip down to Ferguson's fragrant gardens real real soon as they are not online, yet.

As nurseries go, Mary, they have wonderful selection and it is truly a great place I think you could find places closer to you in Portland like Portland Nursery or any of the Seven Dees Nurseries. I am sure there are many in Portland that I am not even aware of. Unless you are looking to make a trip and I could meet you and take you to my Katy's house. Just say when, Mary, and I will be there. Katy has actually been smitten by the gardening bug too. I wish I could get to your area to the Hulda Klager Lilacs because I am looking for a couple of different lilacs. I don't find them down here and I don't want to mailorder them either.

There was a little note posted at Hulda Klager explaining that wacky frosts caused some leaf shrivel and lack of blooms this year. So it wasn't quite as impressive as it has been in past years, though it was still lovely.

Do Klager's sell lilacs too? If so, Joann,let me know what you want and I will make a trip up the road to get them for you. I have not been there in years and years. Then I will make a date to meet you @ Ferguson's. I was reading the Fragrant Garden forum and made a long list, most I am not familiar w/ and got Ferguson's on my mind. Do you think I could get a better deal at Portland Nursery? And I have a rose for Katy, remember? Altho, I can not remember the name.

Yes, you can purchase lilacs there during their annual lilac festival, which i believe ends mid May. They also sell via on-line order as well i think, though i've never done this, as close as they are.

http://www.lilacgardens.com/info.html

Mary, I have to prioritize. The smallest starts are $17 each and there is a couple I would love to have. I am thinking about a pink one like Maiden Blush or a more true blue like President Lincoln or Wedgewood Blue. So I am not committed in my own mind to spending $34 on lilacs. It is so tempting. I keep hoping I will find something local.

Estreya, I have visited up there once and it was very pretty. I just have hard time navigating through Portland. My dd's are my pilots and drivers. I just didn't ever have to drive traffic especially freeway. I am not crazy about it especially not knowing absolutely where I am going and the pace is not something I care for either.

And speaking of Lilacs, Mary, I hope I am not stealing your thread but I have heard there is a way you can prune them which encourages bloom every year because as it is they seem to bloom heavy only every year. I have an older deep purple one and it is quite large and is blooming exquisitely. My MIL gave it to me many years ago and now that she is gone I really prize it all the more. She passed away about 2 months ago. So any clues how you are to prune them to encourage bloom?

I would love to know how to encourage bloom on lilacs.

I get more and more bloom every year, the more you cut and bring in the house the more blooms the following year.

If an older plant take 1/3 of plant back really far down about 2' then every year for the next 2 take another 1/3 by the fourth year you have a really lush full rounded lilac.

When we moved here, had a lilac that the blooms where at about 15 to 20' off the ground...too tall for this shrimp...so I called all over one place said to take a chainsaw to the brush and take it down to 1' would loose all blooms for 2-5 years. NOT my idea. So continued to call. That is when a lilac grower told me to cut cut cut blooms and to do the 1/3 thing. It worked, now all 6 bushes are lush and full of blooms....

Now I want a pink one, the trouble is finding a place for it.

Denise

iris, I need to play back in my own words: cut off about 2 ft of 1/3 of the bush. That would be the taller branches? do this for 3 yrs. call me anal!!

Lenjo - i share your lack of enthusiasm for negotiating the city streets. This is precisely why i have yet to visit any of the great nurseries you have down your way! I wait for the local Garden shows, when all of those fabulous Oregonian nurseries come to me. :)

As for pruning lilacs, i've always hesitated to cut the blooms and bring them in. But now that i know it will actually help the bush to do so, how can i not!?

~~ scampers off to get a vase from the cupboard ~~

anastita

OK, maybe I did not word it correctly, divide the bush in 1/3 first year after bloom cut 1/3 of the bush down to 2' in height, next year another 1/3 and the 1/3 the last year, then the forth year, trim to height you want.

By doing it this way you never will loose all the bloom only some. I have trimmed mine like this and always have lots of bloom.

Give you an idea how much I have LARGE vases filled to the rim of lilacs in 4 rooms of the house....

The bushes hardly know that I cut any. I cut large amounts for the church on weekends...bushes still full with pretty blooms.

The more you cut the lower the bush the easier to handle and the more blooms the following year.

REMEMBER to trim them right after bloom as they start sitting their bloom stems for next year like rhoddies do.

Denise

Hope this helps

Denise, will your remind us again in a week or two by starting a thread about trimming lilacs? My tree must be 10 feet tall and as you say the vast majority of bloom is way way out of reach.
I was doing some reading this morning too and was thinking i would like to propagate some too. Is is too late do you think for layering?
Joan

No not too late...to layer

Joan as much as I would like to remind others to do it...from now on out I am going to be barely keeping my head up, visitors to the garden finish weeding, planting, photo the iris, and doing crosses.

Denise
'

what is layering?

Here is your answer, Mary.

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-8701.html

Thank you farmer JH.

Your welcome, you goofy grape. I am not a farmer really, just a crazy gardener. LOL

No, no you are a farmer. You have tractors!!!!

Ok, if you say so. It is true we have tractors. L even bought me an orange this last couple of years. It is wonderful. It is tiny too.