Ready, Set, Shop

Most of the seed and plant catalogs have arrived or will arrive in the next week or so, and this is the time for all good procrastinators to shake a leg and see what’s new in plant- and seed-land. We’ve got a multitude of places where we can shop, and where and when you shop can be an important key to the success of your plants and ultimately your garden.First, a question. Why would anyone want to buy plants or seeds from a catalog? Well, I’m so glad you asked. We unquestionably have some of the best garden centers in the country out here as well as some of the finest growers. From Amagansett to Moriches and yes, even on the North Fork, I can think of no fewer than a dozen retail nurseries that I enjoy shopping at and who have great selections of quality plants and seeds. But the plants they offer are limited to the plants that their growers make available, and you may also find that some of the seed houses hold back varieties as “catalog only” just to ensure that they still get a piece of the action. This means that for the discerning gardener you have to do your homework and research.

In the area of perennials I’ve noticed that locally the number of varieties carried at any given garden center has been reduced over the years. The varieties being offered to them by the wholesale growers have also been reduced, but if you want a particular plant and you know early in the season, ask for it. Many times it won’t show up on the benches and tables but it’s still available and places like Lynch’s, Marders and Whitmores can get it. But keep in mind that even the largest wholesale growers have limited selections, tend to grow only the most popular varieties and can have crop failures. So, while your local garden center may have 75 or even 100 varieties available at any given time, an internet/mail order nursery like Lazy S’s farm (lazyssfarm.com) can have more than 1,000 varieties or more of perennials on their list.

There is an interesting path here, though. At a local garden center you can buy a mature, usually in flower, plant in a gallon or larger pot for $12 to $25. Plant it and you have the famous instant Hampton garden. The mail order plant, though, will cost you half as much and probably won’t put in a spectacular display for another year. I usually end up with a combination of both locally bought and mail order plants. For plants that I don’t need to fill in blank spaces and when I have time to wait for them to fill in, or if I need a plant that’s more on the unusual side, I buy by mail. On the other hand, if I have a planting of five Heuchera Venus and one has died out, I want to keep the symmetry of the garden intact, so I’ll buy locally and happily spend.

But you can take all this a step further, as even among the mail order nurseries there are the bad, good and great. There are also some interesting price differences. A good example that I noticed is with hardy orchids. The White Flower Farm is offering one variety of Cypripedium (hardy lady slipper orchid) for $145, while Plant Delights is offering the same orchid for $44. Is WFF selling a plant three times bigger or three times better? WFF offers another hardy orchid for $169, while the same orchid from Plant Delights is $75. Now $169 is a lot of money to pay for a perennial and one that’s challenging to say the least. Can you guess where I’d buy mine?

Seed buying is a bit different. Here it’s not a question of pricing, because the price you pay at the garden center versus by mail for the same seed from the same vendor will have little to no variation—although when you buy by mail you usually pay the shipping charges. But garden centers are limited to how much floor space they can allocate to seed racks and how many varieties of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and the like they can offer. There are also over a dozen great seed companies now offering high-quality vegetable seeds, and no garden center can carry them all, while there are several that are only available by catalog or on the net. So, for the most common garden seeds, the local garden center is great, but if you want more variety or want to deal with one of a half-dozen seed vendors that sell only by mail … then that’s your option.

Trees and shrubs are trickier yet. Again, our local garden centers have access to a great deal of plant material when it comes to trees and shrubs. They all deal with local wholesale growers on the Island and in nearby states, but they also bring material in from places like North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Oregon and California. The high-end garden centers also deal with plant brokers and plant finders who can often locate rare, unusual or large specimen plants that the Hampton landscape is so well known for.

You do have an option, a very good one, for the home garden where cost and size come more into play. Say you want an unusual or hard-to-find Japanese maple. You may or may not find it locally, but for a fraction of the cost you can probably find it through an online nursery at a tiny fraction of the price. However, you will also get a plant a fraction of the size. So you need patience, and mail order tree and shrub purchasing isn’t for those who want big and want it big now. It’s for those who are willing to grow things in and have time to wait. Actually, I think these plants often do better as they are not subjected to the shock of being dug, moved and replanted, as most of the mail order materials (with the exception of fruit trees) are usually shipped in containers.

I’ve been putting together a Japanese maple collection and a magnolia collection with nearly all the plants purchased online and shipped in pots. With the Japanese maples it is surely an exercise in patience, as most of these grow very slowly—but I’m not in a hurry. On the other hand, I have several magnolias that I’ve purchased from Klehm’s Song Sparrow Nursery (songsparrow.com) that were shipped in gallon-size pots (or smaller), and just three to four years later they are from 8 to 10 feet tall and well on their way to being handsome specimens (Spiced Spumoni and Purple Star Power are exceptional).

Bottom line? When you can afford to, buy locally, but stay clear of the big box stores, where quality is always an issue. If you don’t see it at your local garden center, ask, but ask early—and now is not too early. But for the rare, unusual and largest selections, you need to shop online. Also consider that several online nurseries have relationships with plant breeders and explorers, giving them access to plant material not available from other sources. Be careful who you shop from, though, and know who their relatives are. More on that next week. Keep growing.