In addition on the poppy question?

Question

I will be ordering from a catalog, such as spring hill or mich. bulb. so they say the plant would be shipped bare root. sometimes i am greatly disappointed with the stuff i get from garden catalogs. any suggestions where else to purchase such things. thanks

Answer 1

For Oriental Poppy's, because I know they hate their roots fooled with, I would suggest a local garden center with well rooted specimens.

  But like I said before, only personal experience on this question, not professional expertise.

Answer 2

I like Michigan bulb because they have a good guarantee policy. I ordered a corner grass garden from them this spring and 2 of the plants arrived dead. It only took 1 email to get them replaced. They have good prices and great customer service. Burpee on the other I will never order from again. Customer service stinks. They also do not package the plants well. The damage was extensive and they do not answer emails or give complete refunds. I have also gotten great plants off Ebay

Answer 3

I've never been happy with either catalog, much less any mail order garden catalog, White Flower Farm included. The plants are stressed and simply perform poorly for the first two years, if they survive at all. I understand your impatience, I was an impatient gardener too quite a while ago but learned through spending a lot of money and sweat effort that the best approach is to buy plants at a local nursery that are healthy and plant them at the time of the year they should be planted.

Good luck!