The Mailorder Experience

 

     Since I live in the country now and have limited retail garden supplies I have been ordering by mail for a few years now. I also have very specific plants in mind most of the time and the local places often don't carry such niche items. There are pros and cons and some companies are better than others, here is my experience,  I haven't tried all Canadian companies yet but let me know if there's one you really like and recommend! 

      Let's begin with seeds, that's how I start in the depths of winter, looking at catalogs in print or online.

 

 Ontario Seed Company

Vegetables, flowers, perennials, trees, cover crops and grasses. Also widely available retail. The prices are great but the amounts of seeds can be miniscule, fair warning! The website is easy to navigate and seeds arrive in a relatively short time. A bonus is that they do not charge shipping which makes this a very good deal!

Veseys, PEI, probably the most reputable mail order company in Canada. A wide selection of vegetables, annuals, seed collections, fruits and berries and garden products/supplies. Many new releases and special varieties, tells you approximate number of seeds. Customer service is excellent and they will give you a refund within reason if there is a problem with anything. Seeds arrive in short order.

William Dam Seeds, Dundas Ontario 

If you are looking for something very specific, hard to find, this is the place! A wide selection of lisianthus for example. This is where advanced growers get seeds I imagine. These took an inordinate amount of time to arrive and time was running out for some longer germination seeds. Customer service was not so great, I had some seeds with zero success and they basically wanted a scientific dissertation on how it was grown, I decided to suck up the few dollars and give up the fight.

Richters, Goodwood Ontario 

A large selection of herbs, medicinals and edible plants, some quite obscure and hard to grow but worth the effort. Website not very easy, I ordered twice by accident but they cleared it up quickly so great customer service! I have found some unusual seeds here! Seeds arrived timely too.

West Coast Seeds, Delta BC, a great "local" seed company. Many varieties of vegetables, annuals and heirloom seeds grown in British Columbia. I usually order online because no one locally seems to carry them. Their online information on germination is very good, customer service excellent. I always have some of these seeds somewhere in my growing round. Always shipped in timely fashion by mail!

     Now, let's move on to plants, bulbs, trees by mail. Special concerns here are timing to our local climate, tracking, carrier and condition of plants upon arrival. 

Veseys, are very experienced at shipping plants, bulbs, trees. Trees are shipped dormant. Some plants are shipped live in clever packaging. I have occasionally had a plant disaster but they are good with refunds if something arrives in poor condition. There are often some unusual varieties and also some good deals especially for things like dahlias, glads, cannas and lilies. Take advantage of shipping or cash deduction offers. Website very easy. Sometimes shipping timeliness is too far into our season and it's pretty hot here when plants arrive, not good news for some. Carrier is Canada Post so easily traceable. 

TreeTime.ca, Edmonton Alberta. Online only. Trees are grown in greenhouses, are usually 1 to 3 years old and are zone 2 to zone 5 don't let the Alberta location discourage you! This company caters to mass planting, shelter belts, urban planting, so trees are sold in multiples. I have had varying success with these small seedlings but they do guarantee them to leaf out, it's just the rest of their lives where we can problems! I enjoy we can choose shipping times from late April to mid June, for dormant trees I choose the April times for our area. Trees are shipped Canada Post, very traceable, and you wouldn't believe how many they can get in a box! Customer service excellent on ordering, will not answer technical/species specific questions. 

     Tree time trees arrive! Plan accordingly, this is a special day!

Nutcracker Nursery, Quebec, A really interesting collection of  Ornamental, fruit and nut trees! There were a few drawbacks however, after arrival I was informed some items were not available  so I got a refund on those, no problem. Trees were shipped in leaf! I have never heard of this practice, any tree I ever got by mail was dormant and they do not mention this! I kept contacting them asking when are these trees coming? They were waiting for them to leaf! Despite my anger upon arrival some of them succeeded despite looking like hell. These trees are small too and need a lot of babying to survive! They used Purolator and the box looked pretty sketchy too, that is a long trip, over a week to get here! Some photos below.

Wiffletree, Wellington Ontario. One of the best mail order tree companies in Canada! Great selection, superior product, large trees shipped when you want! The only issue now is that federal guidelines do not let them ship stone fruit, apples, grapes and pears to BC! So sad about this because their product is so high quality and no one in BC carries the varieties found here! I did get a few things before the crackdown by the feds. I got my ginko trees here, they arrived nearly 5 feet tall already and are doing quite well because I think we need to start bigger here!

Naramata Cactus Company, Naramata BC, one time I bought a cactus at our overpriced greenhouse here and was looking at the tag and decided to Google it and found this! What a delight, you can circumvent a retail price hike and order anything you like! There is also a Youtube video about this man and his passion for cactus in Canada, look up cactus in Canada. He ships once a month for a few months a year and you will receive a paddle or cutting which easily root. I grew mine in small pots for one year knowing I had a good spot available in the future. Watch the video first if you are into this, gloves do not help, use tongs only and have tweezers handy too! This was very rewarding and he even sent some with flower buds which opened that season, cactus are incredible! 

     If you have any positive or negative experiences with these or other companies please let me know. I love looking thru plant catalogues, finding some unusual thing that I can't live without! Happy gardening y'all! 

And Now For Something Completely Different!

     Well, it has been 5 years since my last post and there have been some changes! We were thinking of moving back to BC for around a decade, looked in many places from the island to the Kootenays and had some life events happen, parents passing, pandemics, economics changing, so it took some time but we decided on Creston! This is a pleasant valley, bucolic is a word to use here, with a mild climate and still undiscovered by the outside world. I wanted enough room to collect all the plants and trees that I love so much so we found 8 acres just (literal feet) outside Creston. My partner grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan and I had traveled to the family farm many times over the decades so a rural life is not completely unknown to us! In fact he grew up with raising all the kinds of farm animals, chickens, cattle, pigs, and grain growing, not that we want that life, maybe some chickens for eggs, we will see! My main passion is plants and while I am still young enough to do all the work,  it goes fast, life I mean!

          

     I will begin by showing some of what I have been building around here. This was a farm for many years, the house is from 1960 but people lived here long before then too. It was rented for many years and none of the existing shrubs, beds etc were taken care of.

The first of many moving days!

 

The appearance of the grounds

This was a burn pit, lots of garbage, debris, bottles

The front drive, before fencing

One of the first beds I built under the address sign, to become a succulent garden.

The former fire pit became a new bed

8 yards of soil, moved by me by the shovelful!

Construction of the front bed with newspaper and rocks.

When done I covered in plastic to kill weeds, guess what poked up regardless!?

My neighbours said I could have as many rocks from their cliff as I like so...

One of many trailer loads of plants from the Calgary house.

My constant helper and companion Bella

Building a vegetable garden, sod removal

Sod removed, dog is happy

Some of the driveway gardens restored, many shrubs edited!

The former fire pit area.

Driveway at evening

Succulent bed

Front bed completed and planted, year 2

Front bed year 3

I'm always building new gardens, this used to be a planter box and overgrown grass.

There is much more to this story of course, please subscribe, bookmark or whatever as I have much to share about gardening in this beautiful valley!

     

 

Fall 2021 And The Heat Goes On

      Fall 2021 was a continuation of the above normal trend we saw in the spring and summer. We did not even have a frost until well into October where we usually experience our first frost in mid September! As I write this December 1st, technically still fall, around here November is usually when we have a major snowfall and temps dip into the -10C range and everyone is wishing they put up their Christmas stuff earlier, this year it has been more like the West Coast. As the West Coast experiences unprecidented rainfall and flooding from the phenomenon known as an Atmospheric River on the other side of the mountains we mostly get very mild weather. There has been occasional rain which is really quite something because beyond August our chances of getting snow are quite high. The extended season gave us many leaf colours we rearely get to see in this part of the world. Environment Canada is predicting a colder and snowier winter for Western Canada based on the El nina phenomenon but we will see, I wonder how true this may be? I can see, like last year, some major snow because of the Pacific pattern right now but I will be very curious to see how this winter shapes up! Until then here are some fall highlights...

Some sunflowers. The main stalk got eaten by a squirell but the plant responded by multi heading. 

Tigridia, this time in red. A new plant to me this year.

Found this Wisteria in my neighbourhood. The owner was a little concerned someone had walked up to their house with a camera but after finding out I was not a total weirdo I gave some advice on chlorosis and blooming. I told her I have never seen a wisteria this big in Calgary and this is very special, don't do anything drastic!

The Bow River got so low by September Bella and I walked across the few inches of water to the South side of the Zoo island. I felt like the first human to have travesed this side of the island until I found all the homeless remnants.

So after 20 years Gord discovered these pathways near the glof course just North of us, it's a really nice area divided from us by the Trans Canada so we just never bothered to go there.

A nice evening!

My usual park, looking good in the fall!

A naturalized Green Ash turns bright yellow

A row of Elms and some Russian Olives

Aspens have turned a brillaint yellow this year!

This Amur Maple is just a little cutie

Engleman Ivy rarely turns in our climate, this one on my house almost appears as plastic

Solomons Seal turns yellow in the mild weather

Found this Hawthorn seedling in the field, very intense colours!

The latin name of Kentucky Coffee Tree, Gymnocladus diocius, means bare twig. I wonder since the tiny leaves fall from the stem leaving only the main stem if this is where this name comes from?

While out one warm night

Somebody planted this random Staghorn Sumac somewhere, who would do such a thing?

This Staghorn Sumac in my front yard takes on all the fall colours this year!

From the park just North of us, this looks soooo Alberta to me!

Found this wild Juniper in our new park, rare inside the city, they are more common in the foothills a little further West.

East side of house

This Dahlia was blooming well into October

Some of the Chili crop this year, these guys are hot!

I still had the majority of my plants outside October 6th!

Columnar Aspens among the last trees to change colour, most years the leaves are frozen by now so this is a real treat!

Datura still blooming October 9th

Ginko leaves floating in water, Id write a Haiku if I could remember how!

A placid Elbow River scene

Found these large willows just north of the Saddledome

Our trip to see the Stampede Elm, a 120 something year old tree slated for destruction.

The Stampede Elm, a metaphor for the stupidness of Calgary and how we treat history

My Kangaroo Apple survived well into October

Fall evening

A Chestnut brought back from Victoria BC. In this rare year the leaves have had time to change for the first time in almost 20 years.

Spotted this common Lilac which has turned red/orange, I've never seen anything like this but this has been an interesting year!

A Siberian Elm turns yellow, another rarity as these trees usually stay green up until hard frost so this is pretty rare!

Some Large Leaf Lindens turn yellow/brown, another rarity in our area as often the leaves stay green until frost.

My Engleman Ivy turns red, always exciting, wish the camera would focus on them and not the background!

The West corner with Virginia Creeper, Ecinacea and Sweet Peas

Planted these Larkspur early spring and was surprised they bloomed this fall

Sumacs doing what they do!

A few Aspen out of hundreds turn orange which is very refreshing to see

These Asperagus berries lay somewhere between beauty and horror, it reminds me more of blood or capilillaries or something.

Catone Aster was among the last of fall colour, save the best for last?

DUCK!

King Crimson Maple which is dark burgundy in the summer fades to these tones as fall proceedes.

Fall urns

Front porch

Tiger Eyes Sumac fall colour

A rainy day in October

Sedums reach their peak in October

The Mountain Ash was a thrill as we rarely get this much colour out of it!

This wild poplar in my area is always being frozen with green leaves so this is the first time in my 20 years here I have seen it turn a colour, this was taken October 26.

One day a small bird flew out of my front border, so small it seemed like a large moth to me, I had to look this one up but it is a Brown Creeper. Apparently widespread across Southern Canada, I've never seen one in my life! Cute, around the size of a Chickadee.

This variety of Ninebark was probably the last thing I saw with leaves Oct. 29th.

Also October 29th, a little wet snow, didn't last long or damage anything as it's pretty late in the season.

Found this unusual specimen at my grocery store.

Stats, the number doofus here is covering is 18, yes, it was a spectacualr October!

Sunset November 4th, another unusually mild day

The leaves of Muscari, Grape Hyacinth, often come up in the fall, it seems wrong but even here it's no problem for the plant.

This is what we got out of the first "Atmospheric River" that caused so much damage thorugout BC. Unusually foggy and mild weather.

Some lenticular clouds on a perfectly abnormal November day

Spotted this Dracaena November 27th, it shows just how mild it has been. This would be normal for the West Coast but in Calgary most annuals are long frozen by now!

And the November stats, even more above normal than October!