OK, I ordered from this site at the beginning of June when YardGal first posted. My order was two dwarf Russian sages, a dianthus and a dwarf banana (my husband is a tropical plant fiend). When the order first arrived, I was pretty disappointed and wondered if I would end up regretting it. The banana looked fine, but the other plants were just sad. Obviously, I knew they were going to be small, but they didn't look all that healthy. So fast forward to now. They are still small (the dianthus in particular, which I worried wasn't going to make it), but everything is growing. I don't know if I would order a lot from them nor would I order much later in the year (not enough time to get established before winter), but I think I'd order from them again.

Hi there, How big are the fish? I know it's hard to believe but goldfish will quickly outgrow a 19 gal. container, if they haven't already. But if you're already planning a bigger and better container pond for next year, it might be a good transition :-) I don't know if others will agree with me but if you've got an iris and a water lily, I don't think you really need the aquarium pump. I tend to try and avoid spending more $$$ if I can, and in this case I think if you have the iris (which is supposed to be a very good water cleaner) and just two small fish you will probably be okay. You will just have to stay diligent about water changes, no different than if you had an indoor aquarium. And to be safe I'd probably add in a few submerged plants (anachris, hornwort, etc.) and floaters (water lettuce, water hyacinth, etc.) For the plants you bought, I'd take them out and re-pot them. The mesh stuff sounds like landscape fabric designed not to let roots grow through, so you'll need to remove it, wash most of the existing stuff off and *then* repot. For lilies, I use a mix of soil and kitty litter too, but if you do that, make sure to top them off with plenty of pea gravel or stones so all the soil doesn't wash into your water and turn it into a muddy mess. I plant my iris in plain gravel. Mine seems to be doing great that way and I figure it's sucking more excess nutrient from the water. A lot of it is trial and error to see what works for you, but hope this helps :-)

Hi, njtea. Your clethra was a bargain. We bought a similar size pink clethra for about $30 about 4 years ago. The Ash's flower farm I mentioned previously is also bringing in new stock as well as trying to sell their old stuff. There's no refund if your plant dies so you have to determine if the plant will survive the transplanting. I guess the growers are trying to get rid of their stock in the late season so a lot of the nurseries are holding 50% off sales. Late summer or early autumn is actually a really good time to plant because the temperatures are cooler so the sun doesn't ravage the plants so much ...but we sure need rain. We bought two dwarf nandinas for $20 each. We did go to the HD in Hamilton but most of their sales items were sold including the sweet bay magnolias. Slim pickings.

The Lowes in Red Hook is good for standard stuff. One thing that Lowes has that Home Depot doesn't is a "half price" or "dollar" stack. When a plant shows a little distress, rather than throwing it out, they mark it down. I've nursed a few of those dollar plants back into healthy ones. One thing I'd like to start is a "NYC seedling exchange." I've already done this with one member of this forum and it worked out great. We could set a day and a place and exchange what we've got growing. Any takers?