menemini: Bargains for Gardens

Top Three Reasons Why Now Is THE Best Time To Plant New Perennials:

#1 More For Your Money

you can get perfectly healthy plants for 50% off or more as nurseries clear inventory for the end of the season (usually it costs more to water and care for them through the winter, than to take a reduced profit (except mild winter climates))

Beautiful Blue Spirea

#2 Head Start on Next Year

the ground is already warm, the scorching hot weather is mostly behind us. That means plants get off to a fast start. Compared to Spring plantings when growth starts out very slow as things warm up and days are still getting longer.

They may look sparse or insignificant now, but just be patient.

I promise it will more than make up for it next year.

#3 Diamonds in the Rough

save even more, buy "uglies" and clearance plants that have been cut back or are leggy (long, spindly or misshapen) They may not look very attractive now, but the season is nearing an end anyways. Soon the gardens will be dormant, then you cut them back anyways. Chances are these plants have overstayed thie welcome in the current pot they call home. Room to spread their roots is all they need to return to glory. Next thing you know, Spring is here. Those uglies sprout new full and lush stems, and bigger too, since they had time to establish in the fall and now are bigger and better than the nurseries Spring stock.

I buy most of my perennials this way. Sure it's hard to restrain myself in the spring. Strolling through the warm bright greenhouses filled with lush greenery, while it's still cold and blowing outside. But I know what late summer bargains await.

For Example, see this butterfly bush, #1 pot size regularly $25 each. Buy three or more only $10 each, mix and match with this blue mist spirea, rose of Sharon and several others.

Georgous Butterfly Bush #5 Pot, $10, Regularly as much as $25

These babies attract Hummingbirds and Butterflies and their scent is sweet, sweet, sweet. I like to think it smells like honey.

Here, lets get close enough to get a good sniff...

Yummy, right?

Purple cone flower,one gallon perrennial normally $8, now just $5 each. That is an awesome price!!!

Disregard the "work in progress" ground conditions like the thin layer of mulch to keep the mud where it belongs, and the tree stakes. Temporary yet necessary.

Our end of season sales are just under way. Check your local greenhouse and nurseries. (I pass up the big box store plants. Chances are they have been sitting on pallets in parking lots all summer. Stressed beyond hope from getting too dry or too wet. Sales clerks here lack the love and TLC nurseries have for their plants) In some areas it may still be too soon, but keep checking.

Last year we practically STOLE these trees all for $150 each!!!

this lance leaf poplar was 18 feet tall and the trunk is 6 caliper inches. many deciduous tree sold by the caliper inch, usually average $100 per inch.

This seedless, thornless honey locust, almost 20 feet tall ( we transported them in our 16 foot long trailer. the tops of the trees overhung about 10 feet( because of the root ball ) it was not ideal but you couldn't beat the price!!!