An irreverent take on gardening in the Midwest by a frequently disgruntled gardener.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Experiments in Online Plant Shopping

Earlier this week I had a long chat with a friend about buying plants--she just moved into a new house and will be starting to put her stamp on the yard in the spring, hopefully with lots of berry bushes.  She had been seduced by the ridiculously low prices at the Michigan Bulb Company, but I sent her to Dave's Garden, a fabulous resource for all kinds of gardening information (though I do wish they were more consistent with their apostrophes).  The Garden Watchdog is not kind to the Michigan Bulb Company (located-- who knew?--in Indiana). 

In spite of all the warnings, my friend is still tempted by the insane prices, and now I'm sort of tempted too.  I'm going to do an experiment and order the same 10 items from the Michigan Bulb Company and a company with a better reputation, and see what happens.  

The best place to buy plants, however, is nearly always a local garden center, staffed by people who garden in your area and really understand what works where you live.  I often regret the "deals" I get at Home Despot, because the plants are grown quickly far south of where I live and are not really well adapted to Wisconsin winters, no matter what their supposed zone tolerance is.

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