Park/Wayside Clearance 2007

16 years ago

Parks/Wayside is selling off a bunch of their stock pretty cheap at http://www.parkwholesalegrowers.com

Unfortunately, this year, they don't have near the selection that they had last year and worse, the shipping charge is a flat $10 (as opposed to being based on what you bought, as it was last year). As always with Wayside/Parks, beware you will be getting very small plants for the perennials.

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Comments (11)

donn_
16 years ago
Thanks for the heads up, he says, 9 Japanese Maples later.
alina_1
16 years ago
What do you mean later????
They will add JM???
I just placed my order :-(

mwieder,
Thanks for the post!
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Centerum, My reasoning is that I think there's a possibility that they may have been selecting cultivars that make big plants in the sandy playa lake bed that is Wasco. When the big producers started thinking about going to own root roses / faced up to the increased expense of grafting roses over time as manpower expenses went up/ tried to follow trends, they were still owning the growing fields in Wasco so they were going to be growing those own roots in Wasco or in the desert fields in Arizona. My reasoning would be that they'd choose the white HT for 2007 that grew best in those conditions, rather than the white HT that might grow well cross country even if it didn't make as big plants in CA and AZ. Each cultivar is its own rose; some make hair roots that do better in sands, some may prefer heavy clay. Some may do better grafted on Dr. Huey; some may have better color grafted on canina. Some may even make better standards than dwarfs (grafted on very short rootstock- a phrase from the early 1900s) back when the sellers of roses recommended how to grow different cultivars. I doubt that, when it comes to own root roses, one soil fits all.
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I know what I hope to get because I have a long wish list! You never know in advance what's going to be on the clearance sale, though. Yes, I've ordered from Parks, Wayside, Bluestone, High Country, White Flower Farm, and many other specialty nurseries. I know I'm getting huge bare root roses with awesome root systems. The only plants I've had problems with are the clematis, and they credited me for those. Parks' roses survived our hot summers even though I ordered and planted them in June. Parks/Wayside will package them safely and send me an email when they ship. The sizes are listed online and I have never had one mislabeled. I know some are smaller than what stores sell, but many are newer, more unusual plants, and I don't mind starting with a smaller size if I'm buying at a low price. They all grow. I might not recommend the clearance sale to a novice gardener, but my yard is full of healthy mail order bargains. Don't get me wrong--I buy plenty from local independent nurseries, but most are so understaffed that you really have to know what you are buying there also. Most nurseries cannot afford to stock the newest plants that plant geeks seek out. They also can't afford to hire horticulturalists. cindi
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Well, it's not all that hard to speculate how they tanked. I have no insider info, and everything I have came from news articles also, but one sees this often in these cases where Wall Street has done leveraged buyouts of old name companies. This April 2007 article re Harry & David sale of J&P says Harry & David got $46 million in cash when they sold J&P to the Hachenbergs. Most of that was probably leveraged debt secured by the assets of J&P, which ultimately doomed J&P to fail. I did see an approx $800,000 judgment for unpaid royalties to David Austin LLC -- apparently none of the royalties due for the English roses ever got paid after the Harry & David buyout. That and all of J&P's other normal operating costs and credit would probably be amongst the unsecured debt, which means those folks would get close to nothing in the bankruptcy proceeding. As for the bankruptcy, I would further speculate that that the bankruptcy judge wiped out the debt and sold only the assets to the new owner for that $12.8 million price they announced. Then the folks who had held J&P's $44.79 million in listed current debt probably got the $12.8 purchase price divided amongst them, with secured creditors being paid first. And probably the secured creditors were the Wall Street bankers that structured the buyout a few years back. And the whole buyout deal was probably based on a glowing set of financial projections, probably made by those same Wall Street bankers at the time. And those bankers probably also made huge fees for that leveraged buyout deal. And pure speculation here -- but isn't it interesting that the $12.8 purchase price is just about the same as the $12.5 that your article said was borrowed when the leveraged buyout was done. Guess who got made whole? Gotta love Wall Street and those free market enthusiasts who vote against "goverment interference" (i.e. regulation) of what they do -- the Wall Street bankers consistently found themselves big fees and secured debt on the backs of older companies for whom they convinced owners to do these leveraged buyouts. And now the companies fail under the weight of that debt load and we are surprised? I'm not.
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Just to divide the companies as they were for many years before the acquisition of J&P, the customer service at Parks and Wayside was always excellent and 90% of their customers said as much. People complained mostly about the plants when they did, but I still have roses growing that I bought from Wayside long before the J&P buy up (Caruso anyone?)... Last year I had a devil of a time getting a catalog from J&P even though I'd ordered a rose. I finally had to call a supervisor at Parks to have them mail me a catalog. Now it may be a collectors item. The guy I spoke to was so hopeful that Parks Seed would survive and that they would all keep their jobs. I'm sure the employees are more concerned about that then whether we will get plants/seeds from them any longer. They always did well by me so now all I can say is fingers crossed and God bless them...Maryl
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Laura twixanddud - SE MI - 5b
16 years ago
Thanks for letting us know!

Your post about the sale last year prompted me to buy some plants - two things did really well (ghost fern and gaillardia 'Oranges and Lemons') and two others died over the winter.

Looks like there isn't anything in the sale this year that I just have to have.

Please be sure to post about the sale next year too! :o)
Cindi_KS
16 years ago
Yes thanks! The stuff I ordered last year is doing great, most of it, anyway. I HAD to order more roses, and that Orangeola Japanese maple, and, and, you know how it goes.
I got an email saying the 5 boxes are in transit with DHL, but DHL doesn't tell you when to expect the shipment, or if it will come on the DHL truck or be handed off to the post office. Anyone know? The order I got from Wayside on Friday came by FedEx. I'm kind of hoping they add more items to the clearance list...hoping for Austin roses.
Cindi
katob Z6ish, NE Pa
16 years ago
Thanks for the post. I was good this year and didn't follow through on the stuff I put in my cart.... probably beacause I still have a few things from last year that are sitting in the pot getto waiting for a permanent home!

I had excellent results last year with the roses and clematis that I bought and was hoping to see more of that this year. Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.
highalttransplant
16 years ago
Cindi, it may depend on where you live, but where I am DHL always delivers to the post office. If they give you a tracking #, you can see when it is delivered to your local post office. I always pick mine up, otherwise it adds an extra day to the delivery.
Cindi_KS
16 years ago
I placed this order on June 6 and it arrived today at the post office. Rather than wait until tomorrow to have our carrier bring the four huge boxes to the house, I went and picked them up. Some companies pay extra $$ and DHL delivers to the house, but this way worked out ok. I just had to keep checking the DHL link to see when they showed up.
The plants looked soooo much better this year than last year. I'm real happy I ordered. The bare root roses are huge with massive root systems. The parks/wayside sales are supposed to end at 11 tonight, and I'm trying hard not to look at the list...trying not to order any more! I am kind of wondering if the wholesale site will list more leftovers tomorrow or if the sales are over for this year.
artemis_pa
16 years ago
I also ordered. I found out that if I used the "search" engine on the website I found other things not on the sale pages...and they were also 70% off! Last year everything was in great shape, BIG and ready to start growing.
I ordered roses, shrubs, and flowers.
mwieder
Original Author
16 years ago
artemis - care to share your hidden finds?
Cindi_KS
16 years ago
Artemis??? Show us the way! I keep checking the wholesale page, but nothing has changed in the last week. Where did all the leftovers from the Wayside and Parks pages go? They had some roses that have not made it to the wholesale page, and I'm impatiently waiting for them to be listed...real cheap.
Donn, did you actually get all the Japanese maples you ordered? I'm a little upset that they subbed and I didn't get the Orangeola I wanted. The packing slip said I got it, but that's not the plant I unpacked. They said I would have to pay the postage and send it back to get a refund!!!! I still want the Orangeola that I ordered! Did anyone get that one?
donn_
16 years ago
Cindi..I gottem today. All 9 were exactly what I ordered, and all were in fine fettle. They were a bit dry from their days on the road, but were well packed, and in good shape.

I must admit, I was a bit surprised. Last summer's Park's Wholesale Clearance order was horrible. Poorly packed and ratty plants. This year was a full turnaround. All good-looking trees, and perfectly packed. I guess they got tired of me complaining from last year.

Park/Wayside Clearance 2007

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donn_

alina_1

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Park/Wayside Clearance 2007

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