Graceful Gardens website has lots of pretty blooms on it. I usually buy statice seedlings from a local family owned and run greenhouse. They usually have 2 different kinds, but not always. I have started some seeds inside a couple times, too. I have some pics of flowers I dry ready to put on my blog when I get a chance to put them up. I have already done a post on strawflowers.

My husband is a big credit card user, but I avoid using them. I insist the bills get paid in full each month.

Happy Gardening to you, too!

I reread my post and it sounds like I am trying to promote their business. That was not my intention. I was pleased to find a site that had all the old garden faves. I posted it to give everyone IDEAS for choosing and growing traditional Cottage Garden Flowers.

I personally grow almost everything I can from seeds or from cuttings. I can't afford those kind of prices - the shipping alone would exceed my flower budget! It is ridiculous to charge that much for plants! But their website gives beautiful colorful images and descriptions that inspire me. I hope they do you too.

There are two little family-owned nurseries near me that grow and sell great plants that are very cheap and very healthy. (like $1.35 per 4-6 flower plants and 4 Tomatoes for $1.25. Perennials $2.00 - $4.00 per - That's more my kind of prices!). Great plants of all kinds. They also have roses, shrubs and other plants and trees. One nursery owner will let me come work for her to pay for her most expensive plants that I cannot afford. All I have to do is water her nursery plants in the greenhouse for three-four hours each day for 3 days and I get an 8ft. tall fancy-leaf Japanese Maple tree??? You bet!

But Graceful Gardens is very inspiring with lovely, lovely images.

I really stuck my foot in it that time!!!
Really sorry about that!

Anyway, Happy Gardening!
~Annie

Annie you didn't stick your foot in it, I got your meaning. I do the same thing when I find something that might be of interest to others beside myself, I am in no way promoting any business, it just saves me a lot of typing LOL. Some of the sites I can't order from even if I wanted to but they do have good photos which help a lot when choosing which plants to look for. I bookmark a lot of these sites so I can go back for information on growing conditions, heights etc. Graceful Gardens is a wonderful site.

Years ago when I worked in a nursery I took the seasonal job so I could buy plants for my garden, there wasn't money for extras back then, and plants were a luxury.

Annette

Annie,
I didn't take it that you were promoting them, either. I put an article on my garden blog about a coffee shop I like that sells over the internet, and it's not even about gardening.

Thanks for visiting my blog,
Sue

Annie, that was a really enjoyable place to browse around and look at the great flowers. I'm with you, though. I don't think I could bring myself to pay two bucks a plant when some of them are so easy to start from seed.

Thanks for the link.

ThinMan

Annie - I'm with Annette - not a problem. I have a few places I love to browse, but can't afford to buy. I couldn't find the statice that you referred to, but in my old garden I had statice latifolia - very beautiful - like lavender baby's breath. I grew a packet of seeds - 3 plants made it and 2 survived the first winter. Had to leave them behind, dammit. Oh well.

Nancy.

I grew Statice several years ago. I planted two packets of mixed colors. I got: white, off white, pink, apricot, lavender, blues and dark purples. I still have the ones I dried. I believe I have seeds tucked away somewhere in my seed boxes. Tomorrow I will dig around and see if I can find them. Wonder if they would still grow?

I like to grow them for their beauty of course, but mostly to remember my dear Grannie. She died 13 years ago at the young age of 102. Her birthday is Feb. 7th and mine is the 9th. I was named for her, too. Mother says I am very much the gardening girl that she was and laughs whenever she sees me picking up broken plants from a nursery/garden floor or pinching plants and "stealing" seeds.
I tell her they WANT me to take them home and love them to life. How can I tell them no? She chuckles and says, "You're just like Momma."

Grannie was an honorary member of the San Pasqual Zoo in San Diego since it opening and frequented the place, going once a month, for more than twenty years. They sent her a free "ZooNews" magazine and bulletin updates on the animal births and events happening at the zoo.

She always wore a big, wide-brimmed straw hat and dressed in blue jeans, a plaid flannel shirt and wore sturdy walking shoes. She carried a LARGE leather handbag on all outings. She used her cane as a pointer, to poke things with and investigate rocks she saw that she liked. Her ancestry was clear to see in her amazing resemblance to the Queen Mother. What a mug - firey red hair (still visible even at her last years), sharp, piercing blue eyes, intelligent, stern and quite serious.

Her favorite thing about going to San Pasqual was pinching plants. She particular liked succulents and cacti, but not unknown to take "samples" of anything that struck her fancy, cute little Grannie. No one everquestioned her or said a word to her about it, if they indeed even saw her. She was little, ancient and heavily armed with a cane.

I want some Statice seeds to grow for Grannie.

~ Annie

Graceful Gardens is great. I have split an order with a co-worker from them last year. Plus for me, I like that I can support a fellow New Yorker and get plants at the same time.

Melissa

It sure is a beautiful website, such beautiful, healthy flowers and good prices too.

Annie,
I enjoyed reading your memories of your grannie. I let violets grow here and there because I remember liking them in my grandma's yard. She did not garden, though.