I had a horrible experience with a Green Barn in 2020. We paid 500+ for our order, the trees were sent in such a condition that from 5 trees 4 came dead. The root system was wet and I expecting the reason why the plants are dead is that they did not survive the winter at the Green barn before they sent the order. I would not bother for one dead tree, but 4 out of 5 sounds too much! I never experience such a huge loss of 80 % of trees from a single purchase. This company is absolutely one to avoid for future purchases Trees were super small as well. See photos. Ken refuserefuses to send other plants, no refunds.... This company is really robbing you. It is better to purchase form Canadia Tire.....

This entire discussion meanders around the issue of how fruit ripeness is to be judged, and how it seems to be hard to nail down all the details. A few years ago I read that a particular obscure pear which grows on the Frost Ranch near here consistently wins taste tests at the county fair. That's nice, I thought, and I set about to get a scion for my tree, which I did. I also read that pears are known for being a mite particular about when they are picked, how they are ripened, and so on, to be at their peak. So clearly we are aiming at an ever-moving target here! So how do we know we're judging a fruit at its peak? Vintners understand this problem with grapes, and that's why vintage matters with at least some wines, but such niceties aren't much discussed with apples, pears, peaches, and plums, if I understand correctly. So is the Frost pear winning taste tests because it's the best pear, or because it doesn't take some special expertise to ripen it properly? Today I was luvvin' my little pear tree and I realized I'd squished something; at my right heel was half a Frost pear and a bit of squish. This was my first Frost pear, and I'd just squished half of it! I picked up the un-squished half and ate it. Boy, it was good. :-)Mark

Melissa- After reading your post, I immediately jumped in my car and flew to Gertens - and I live in Wisconsin. 'Empress Wu' is at the top of my wish list. However, when I got there she was priced at $39 (yikes!! - lol) That is a little rich for my blood, so I settled for a huge 'Big Daddy' ($9), four 'Mona Lisa' lilies (in one pot), two hakone grass, 3 Ajuga reptans, 'Burgundy Glow', a HUGE Datura and some Creeping Jenny. I had a $10 gift card so I got the whole thing for $49.00 I felt a little better getting so much more for the money. I guess I am just cheap/frugal (lol). 'Empress Wu' will have to wait. Gerten's, by the way, has more than quadtrupled their hosta inventory and had quite a few new varieties. Thanks for the heads up, Melissa.

Lynn, I am SO ready for the planting games to begin, despite the cold temps and wet ground. Quailhunter, I have a raised bed at the western end of my garden where the soil is naturally a little bit sandier than the clay in the rest of the garden. I've amended that bed a lot with organic matter over the years and it probably has the best drainage of any of my raised beds. It is still muddy, but not as muddy as the rest of the garden and property, so I think it will be OK to plant them there. If I didn't have that well-draining bed, I'd likely put the plants in the tornado shelter and hold them there until March. I have absolutely no idea when I'll be able to plant potatoes, though, because they're going into a new garden area that has had little amending and which has no raised beds, so it is still extremely wet. I have high hopes that the sunshine and warmer temps we're having this week will help dry out the soil some. I suspect the mud will continue to plague us and we'll just have to deal with it. It is almost (but not quite) enough to make a person wish for a drought. Glenda, I always have them ship at their recommended date for my zip code too because some years I can plant them at that time, but other times I have to hold them a couple of weeks. Since you can easily hold them for 3 weeks, I never have a problem getting them into the ground within 3 weeks of receiving them. How much cold onions can take seems highly variable. They are hardy so they can withstand a lot of cold, and I've never seen a 'drop dead' temperature below which they will not survive (although I'm sure there is one), but it seems to me that once the temperates drop much below 23 or 24 or 25 degrees that I start seeing signs of freeze damage on some onions. In terms of bolting, it is a combination of the plant size and the temperature. So, smaller onions can take more below-45 temps than larger ones can. I've never seen anything like a specific number of hours that onions can tolerate below 45 degrees before they'll bolt...just general comments that 'prolonged' exposure to cold temps can cause bolting in onions that are larger than 1/4" in diameter when those temps occur. In most of Oklahoma, onions are pretty safe from harm if they're planted anytime in March provided you cover them up if the traditional Easter cold spell is especially cold. I know that some people here in Love County plant them in January or February but onions put in the ground in January run a big risk of bolting, and if planted in Feb., the earlier in the month, the riskier. The worst possible scenario is to plant the onions at the appropriate time, from mid-Feb. to mid-Mar. and have them growing very well in prolonged mild weather and then have a very cold, very late spell of prolonged cold weather in--let's say--April. If the weather is mild and they're growing well and have gotten larger than 1/4" in diameter, that late prolonged cold spell can cause them to bolt. When that happens, it seems like some bolt and some don't. So, cold weather early while they're smaller is not so bad as long as it stays above the low 20s, but the later in the spring that a prolonged cold spell hits, the worse its effect on them. Highly variable temperatures is one issue that causes onion planting to get tricky here. Short daylength onions need to go into the ground as early as possible in winter so they can get their maximum green leaf growth before the appropriate daylength triggers bulbing. (Because each green leaf represents one layer of the onion.) If you hold short-day types too long because of cold weather fears, their days to grow are limited and you get fewer leaves which results in smaller onions. Intermediate daylength types can be held a little longer in spring before being planted because they'll have longer to grow leaves before the right daylength triggers bulbing. The difference is the reason my 3 individual bundles are intermediate types and my sampler is of shortday types...because intermediate types give me larger bulbs more consistently, all other things being considered. Dawn