Oh, boy. . .you're talking to a nursery junkie here, and I garden in Monmouth County, right in the middle of your commute! It would be enormously helpful if you could outline your specific commuting route, so my first batch of suggestions would be right along your path - then, if you're finding my info helpful, we can pinpoint nurseries a little further off your route, and so on until we're covering the whole state of New Jersey and beyond !!! Yes, I am so nursery-addicted that I actually make an annual Spring trip to a series of phenominal nurseries in North Carolina and Virginia. . . For starters, just a few miles from Rare Find (didn't you say "not real expensive" ?) is one of my backbone nurseries called Cicconi Farms. . .although they've gone a little more "upscale" in recent years, they have retained one of their long-time treasures: quart-sized starters for about $2.75 each (less in quantity) of virtually hundreds of different perennials - and those smaller starters are full-sized plants by the end of the season without you're having to pay full-sized prices! Interesting tidbit: these folks also sell wholesale, and I know a LOT of area nurseries that buy the quart sizes from them and then pot-them-up into gallons so you can pay four and five times as much! If you check their web-site (below) and click on "Availability", you'll find an exhaustive PDF listing of everything they have (NOTE: their much larger Spring listing isn't there yet, but at least looking now you'll see the various sizes and the range of their offerings). And those quart-sized plants are all out in the hoop-houses where you have to wander about collecting them on your own (don't worry, it's "roughly" alphabetical) - the staff can be very helpful in the retail operation up front, but the most fun is trolling the hoop-houses at your leisure and unearthing relatively cheap tresures. . . Full directions to the nursery are available on their web site. . . Carl P.S. What exactly do you mean by "pick-your-own"? For fruits and vegetables? 'Cause I also belong to an organic farm co-op (in Mercer County) and can probably give you every farm stand/pick-your own with-in 50 miles ! Told you I was certifiable. . . Here is a link that might be useful: Cicconi Farms

Hi, and welcome to the Inter-Mountain West. For trees you may want to check out Fossil Creek Nursery on Route 287, just as you approach the south suburbs of Fort Collins. From now through April they have bare root trees for sale at a price much reduced from containterized or balled and burlaped trees. Dig your planting hole, put a mound of soil in the center and spread the roots of the bare root tree (or other plant) over the mound and backfill the hole. Do no soil amendment other than adding about 1/3rd volume of compost to the soil you removed when digging the hole. After backfilling use the remainder of the soil/compost mix to form a saucer around the edge of the hole to direct irrigation water around the newly forming root system Stake the tree against the wind for at least the first season while new roots are forming. If you're interested (as a new gardener in Colorado), I'm giving two talks at the Boulder Co. Fairgrounds in Longmont on the next two Tuesday evenings (7 PM). The talk next Tuesday is on Ornamental Vines for Colorado Front Range Gardens and the following week it is on Ornamental Grasses. The talks are being given as a benefit fundraiser for the Longs Peak Barbershop Chorus so the $10/class fee is paid directly to the Chorus, not to me. There are posters in various garden centers around town (Flower Bin G.C. for instance) giving the details.

i ordered my plants in feb they said it would be here the 15 of may but did not come so i called them they they said it be the 27 of may still not come so called them again they said was on back order i told them i order them in feb they said put on rush order some i would look every day they finely sented them throught fedex but fedex had them for 4 day without water i open the box and almost all was dead 48 plant i will never ever buy another thing from them will go back to buying other places

This thread is worth printing off, please keep these great ideas coming.. I dont' have any ideas as good as these, but here are a few Just off the top of my head.. 1.) please don't throw away any aluminum, plastic or styrofoam containers from your winter sowing, they can ALL be recycled. 2.) For seeds that are prone to getting weevils, like my hibiscus seeds, I pick the entire seed pods, and put them in the freezer for a week , sometimes longer to kill the little devils so they dont' destroy the seed. 3.) I use a paint pen specifically for plant labels, but what I have found last longest is a pencil on a plant label. I have a sedum trading friend in England ( he wrote the bible on Sedum) that sends all my cuttings to me like that, with labels written on in pencil and they have lasted for years. I also have a hard time with my window blind labels getting moved around, so for some plants, when I plant them, I sink a label into the ground by the roots, THEN add an above ground label for 'double identity' 4.) My brugmansia cuttings root best....I buy $1.00 buckets from the everythings' a dollar store, and put enough water to cover the bottom of the cuttings. I have found an aquarium stone to airate the water to work great, but this year, just changing the water constantly has given me a 98% rooting success rate. I do use my marker to write on each cutting the name, as well as adding a label so I dont' get them mixed up. 5.) Ben and Jerry's icecream containers work great for winter sowing...unfortunately only my son can eat the icecream, but I collect the cups LOL. Also using big plastic organic spinich and greens containers I get at Food City, plastic cups, etc. 6.) An old fashioned idea from my mom that she has done forever, with a 99% success rate, and my grandmother did as well. Most of you probably already know this. In the fall...if she has a rose bush cutting , she will just literally stick it in the ground where she wants it to grow...turn a mason jar over it, and surround it with mulch and leaves. In the spring, it is rooted. Call it magic, but it works for her. I don't 'do' roses, so I havn't tried it. I have traded for multiple rose bush cuttings for her though and she now has a rose garden from them.