what have you bought so far? part three

You're like the energizer bunny, Thom - still going!!!

I wanted to unpack just one package, to show how big the clumps are...these are from one of the astilbes...I picked the middle/average clump/root system...most were larger, 2 were a little smaller. For a compare/contrast, they are leaning up against a regular old can of my poison, Diet Coke...

love that store!

Oh I guess you know where im going tomorrow!!!!
Thom, it's OK to show me them, but don't tell me WHERE. I told you I was weak!!!!!!!

Thom, I'd have been sold by the pretty boxes alone LOL.

No more plants this week, but I'm sowing so many seeds for vines I needed some pots and supports, so I went here and ordered 2 pots

http://www.bestnest.com/bestnest/RTProduct.asp?SKU=WHP-46107

and 2 obelisks to put in them

http://www.bestnest.com/bestnest/RTProduct.asp?SKU=GAR-R506

they have free shipping over $75 and these would have cost a ton to ship

also got a nice marker to put by the roses I'm planting for my DMIL and DFIL

http://www.bestnest.com/bestnest/RTProduct.asp?SKU=WHP-28754

Nice big pots Gram and the scroll work on the obelisks is lovely. I like the Cherub on the marker too!

I love the pots!!! I have been searching, without much success, for cement troughs...if anyone has a clue as to where I can buy them, please let me know. I know where I can get them around here, a local garden center sells them, but the price is really high.

Ok, for all of you concerned about my mortgage, relax...lol. I am officially done with my plant ordering, honest I am. The following are my final orders that I have put in, next for me which is going to cost more money than any plants I can possibly purchase is the delivery charges for the skids of fieldstone, quarry stone, cement, topsoil, and mulch I will be having delivered in late spring/early summer.

Klehms Song Sparrow:
Hosta 'Ice Age Trail'
Morus alba 'Itsoguma'
Tsuga canadensis 'Coles Prostrate'

Connells Dahlias:
Cyril Higgo
Klondike
Shazam

Oakes Daylilies (I feel bad, my smallest order with them yet :-(
Lavender Deal
Gentle Shepherd
Ilonka
Lavender Vista

Chamblee's Roses (yes Kassia, I ordered roses!)
Icebergx3
Lagerfeld

Gram I like your choices too. I will have to nose around this site myself.
Thom I just can't imagine the amount of work you are going to have this spring, but the rewards sound like they will be wonderful. We expect pics and progress reports of course.

I almost forgot, within the mix, I have ordered some really different annuals from Plants Delight. And ordered 7 or 8 different varieties of coleus from Rosey Dawn.

If I was any good at doing it, I would have made the places where I bought everything hyperlinks...sorry!

My deck, and front porch are going to look like a green house...lol. Which is fine with me!

I have some help now, so all of my big dreams in my garden can actually happen. I used to be a solitary gardener, because I was alone...which, I didn't mind, but I tend to work better with a helper/partner...I think most people do...I may be wrong on that. So, Paul is offering to help out...even if it's just unloading stuff, opening things up, or for an extra set of eyes...he's dirt-o-phobic...it will all help out.

My father, who's a master carpenter, is helping with the mechanical/woody aspect of my garden plans, and is actually helping in the pouring of the cement slab, putting up of the fence, and helping me plumb (I hope I spelled that right, I mean to level, not to eat fruit...lol) of the stone walls I will be attempting to put up.

I also am enlisting the aid of a friend of the family who owns a Bobcat to come in and remove bushes, and things that would take me forever to do. He is also getting rid of whatever he digs up...so, I hope all of the plans do come together...!

Essentially, my whole backyard, which is about 240'x45'...about, give or take, is going to be either, dug up, redone, overhauled, have walls/raised beds placed on it, or otherwise resurfaced. LOTS of big projects. I'm also, the main bed where about 70% of my orders are going so far, is going to be a giant lasagna style bed, I've already started collecting newspapers, and cardboard boxes. I'm having several ton of topsoil delivered also...essentially, it's a dumptruck full, or half full, something like that. Newspapers/cardboard, plant scraps, some compost, then the soil, then I plant.

I'm sweating thinking about it all already.

I didn't mean ton...OMG...it's early yet, and my brain isn't working, I just reread that and almost had soda come out my nose. Whatever the weight of almost a dumptruck full, the man I spoke to said it would be almost 3/4 full, is what I'm having delivered.

Thom's going to have to have a slumber party to get everything planted too...

Lasting a month - more like spring camp.

So, you won't be on DG much come thaw time will you? Got spot lights for night digging? DH ran a back hoe under lights one year...neighbors didn't care for it much!

I'm actually taking off 2 weeks from work, once the bulk of everything arrives, and dates are definitively set. I need to.

It's going to need to transpire Mon-Fri, my weekend off, and then another Mon-Fri. If anyone wants to help, you are more than welcome to anything I don't use....

lol.

Pix, thanks. I ike 'em :0) Our patio is dyed concrete in a terra cotta color.

I actually do have the lights. The easiest thing for me is getting the annuals done. I'm itching to get all of the pots/planters, bleach, and hose them out, then start at it. But I have to wait until the first/second week of April for that. Which is gonna KILL me. I'll probably end up getting all of the pots done, and forget about an order, and have it arrive after the fact...it's happened in the past.

Plants Delight was awful...omg...terrible, I could have spent my whole "allowance" there...every last penny.

Same thing with Rosey Dawn, I could have spent a mint there also...thanks Pirl...lol...first ya enable me with the JI's, now it's coleus...lol...evil evil and evil...
but, I like it a lot, a lot :-)

Has anyone ordered stones (any kind really) from a quarry before? This is my first venture into it, and it seems like not one of them has a "fixed" delivery rate. What I mean is, do they usually charge by tonnage, by mile, by both...is there a radius, once outside of the driving radius the price goes up? Those sort of questions, I'm not really getting anything concrete from either of the quarries I've spoken with...people, not the rocks...lol.

Thom, if you can do all that in 2 weeks, I need you here. Quit your day job! lol

I've never ordered directly from a quarry--when I wanted bluestone, our son went to building supply place & hauled it with a truck rented from HD. When he was buying slate for his floors, he went to VT & brought it home in his FIL's truck . This leads me to believe shipping is high for those type of items. However, a good hardscape is the backbone of a good garden, so go for it!

My neighbor is in the stone business he gets X amount for a pallet and charges X amount for a certain amount of miles to deliver it.

Sounds like a XX business.

or an X rated.

Thom, I can send Jax over to help. He's my only garden partner. He sometimes scratches up the beds, but he's an intrepid Voler. He even bags a mole now and then.

Jax looks like he might beat up Iris...lol.

Thank you Pixie. I thought that should have been more like it. A pallet costs this much.... And delivery will cost this much.... Something like that. I got hmms and hawwss...from 2 different quarries.

I'm actually losing bids on the LA, and guess what, I don't mind. I have a total of 7 coming from the LA. So, a little loss is ok...lol.

Victor, when everything comes my way, and for everyone elses pleasure, I will gladly post pics here of the mayhem that will ensue.

I think I'm going to start buying my dirt for the pots/planters now. The big squares are about $25 a piece, and I think I need 4 or 5 of them...yes, that is how many planters/pots I plan on filling up.

I found out from Indiana Berry today, that the blackberries that I ordered are possibly on back order, due to snow on inventory. Indiana? Snow? this weather, sheesh...it's in the 40's here, and actually, not bad out.

Thanks - looking forward to it.

Thom, I'm getting tired thinking about your enterprise! I am glad you're planning for their arrival judiciously - I've had it happen that i went crazy - not as crazy as you, but still, for me, crazy, - and forgot what or how much I'd ordered. I don't have anything like as much space as you do, and it didn't occur to me that it might ALL arrive on the same unseasonably hot day and need water and beds and a gin and tonic. I lost a lot, and i definitely had rows of plants in the shade waiting their turn in the triage area. Best of luck, and you'd better keep us posted, and don't you have a camera? xx, Carrie

Thom and dear Paul ~

I can't wait to see all the photos and hear all about the fun the two of you are going to have getting THIS garden in this year. It would make for a very good story, for all of us, don't you think?

Carrie, I do have a camera, it was my "big" xmas gift from Paul...how to properly take pictures and use it...that's another story. I started cleaning pots today...my front room...has pots all over the place. They are heavy buggers. I did an order like this, or atleast very close to this when I lived at my parents, if this says anything as to how long ago it was, I ordered directly from Shady Oakes nursery. I had, on average, about 1-2 boxes/packages arriving if not every other day, a few times a week, over the course of about 3 weeks.
Sad thing is, most of it my mom ripped out, threw away, or used Roundup on. I wasn't kidding about the Iris that I rescued from her.

One whole bed, that measures about 6'x40'...gone...all of it GONE...it was my first order from Oakes too. I believe there was roughly $400 in DL's, that she ripped up and threw away. After I showed her the cancelled check, she got sick to her stomach about it...we had words...lol. All of the daffs/tulips/crocus and hyacinths, that I ordered from Brent and Beckys, Van....blah blah blah...also, she dug them up, and left them sitting in a metal ash can for a few days...she thought they would be ok. It was June, and about 85 out.

I have the staging area ready, and I'm waiting. I have a raised bed with nothing but ProMix, shagmum peat moss, and sand, waiting to heal in what I don't get to right away, the bed measures 8'x8' and is about 10" high.

I'm so excited...for me and for everyone else who is ordering, or watching their seed kids grow up...yeah for everyone...Spring, is upon Us!!!

Candyce, I'll send Paul your regards...lol.

My enthusiasm just boils over, he can't do anything but sit back and smile, although, it might be a smirk...not sure these days. Occasionally, it's a smile/smirk with a nodding of the head...lol.

I'm looking out of the window, our computer is right next to the window that looks out over the deck, and the whole back yard, and I'm visualizing all that we will have to do.

I might actually start to blog about this in my DG garden diary.

Thom - I agree with Pixie. A price per pallette and a price for delivery. I guess there would be an additional charge for a delivery out of their typical area. We've never bought that much, except for sand and bricks, to require delivery. I like to pick and choose each river rock I buy.

Daydreaming combined with back breaking work will make a beautiful garden for you and Paul.

Glasshouse Works also has wonderful coleus but I'm splitting orders with them and Rosy Dawn Gardens for coleus and seeds for Datura on the Classified Ads. They're so beautiful you just might want a few packages for your tropical deck.

http://www.gardenstore-n-more.com/servlet/Categories

Just a little temptation for the Datura I mentioned.

I'm making some headway into the quarry deal. There is a quarry I'm in contact with, and they are actually helping me out, over the phone of course, with the materials I need. I told them the measurements of what I want/expect to do, and they told me the measurements of the pallet of the material, and on average, what it will cover. I was like, great...so, they aren't trying to oversell at all. Them man actually told me that he would pack one of the pallets a little tighter so I wouldn't need to buy a 1/2 of one!

Ok, question about Datura, since I've never ever grown them, but have always admired them...how easy are they, and when should I pot them up, IF, BIG HONKIN IF, I were to buy seeds?

i think i am a little too in touch with my inner 12 year old.
i was at HD, and i found this funny enough to take a picture with my phone.

I was happier with the coleus I received from Rosy last year than the ones I had always gotten from GW. Bigger and healthier.

Thom - they're supposed to be easy but I haven't tried them so if you'd rather wait until I get mine planted and see how they do for me, then order, that's one idea that won't even cost you any money or time. I'm glad to hear about the company working with you. Sometimes leftovers lead to more projects - not always a bad thing.

Funny, Amy. What did John do after he did what the package says? Or, do I really want to know? Ha!

Victor - that's great to hear. I'll head back to Rosy Dawn and see what else they have that's comparable to GW. Thanks.

Good to hear, Victor. I was completely mesmerized by RD's selection-had to try some. I should be getting them the end of this month. I plan to try to root cuttings from them so I can get more bang for my buck. Plus I have lots of shady areas to fill up!

Ok...this Friday is the day/date. Don't any of you frugal people cringe...lol. I'm having 2 pallets of fieldstone, and 1 extral large pallet of colonial rock delivered, and is being manually taken off the back of the delivery truck...cost: $460 This quarry is about an hour away from where I'm at. The pallets of fieldstone are $80 each, the colonial stone is $120, and deliver/labor is $180.
Local garden centers sell the field stone, full pallets average about $150 each/ 1/2 pallets are about $70-100 each...delivery, if you can get it delivered, variest greatly among the nurseries/garden centers.

I'm actually getting excited about stone being delivered...lol.

If my name was John, I would have peed...I'm that excited...lol.

Can't wait. The dream is starting to finally come to fruition.

I'm frugal. I am not cringing. I am pulling my hair out.

Patti needs to weigh in here. I keep seeing her on virtually every co-op! She is expressing interest in the possible hellebore one now.

A pallet of flagstone delivered here can cost over $500 -- and that is with "free delivery" They sell stone & boulders by the pound - anywhere from 10-30 cents......