Tips & Tricks

If you are new to mail-order gardening, it can be a little daunting. Let's begin as your first order arrives at your doorstep. What do you do now?

• Open the box! Plants travel very well in our boxes, but they will appreciate getting into fresh air once again. Take a look over the plants and water any that are looking wilted or droopy, and don't worry — wilting is a plant's natural defense against drying out. Just give them a good drink and they'll perk right back up within a couple of hours. You can water your plants right in their shipping carrier if you'd like.
• Set your plants outdoors in their carriers in a shady area until you're ready to plant. Plants will appreciate a couple of days in the shade after several days in transit. They have not seen any sunlight while shipping and this "time out" will let them reacclimatize. If you can't get them into the ground right away, that's ok. Set the plants in dappled shade and water when you see wilting, normally 2 to 3 times a week. If you are holding the plants longer than 2 to 3 weeks, feeding will be necessary. A product like Miracle Grow works very well.
• When you’re ready to plant, just remove the plastic wrap and plant the pot! Dig the hole bigger than the pot so the plant's roots can reach out into soft soil. (We send detailed planting instructions with every shipment.)
• Don't worry if you have a cold snap after planting. Perennials handle frost and freezing very well. If your cold weather looks as if it will stick around for awhile (hello northeast Ohio!), newly planted plants can be protected the first few nights in the ground with a newspaper tent to trap some heat, or by a large pot turned upside down.
• If things go wrong — just let us know. Shipping live plant material from our greenhouse to your doorstep isn't as hard as shipping live fish, but things can and do occasionally go wrong. Just give us a call and we'll fix the problem right away. We want you to be happy, and to make gardening with Bluestone as easy and stress-free as possible.
• Once your plants are in the ground, enjoy!