Likely from the same source you've ordered (living in Canada means rather limited options for on line shopping), 'Major Wheeler' lonicera and crambe maritima, both of which I had to leave behind in a recent move and both of which I haven't been able to find locally.

'Major Wheeler' lonicera and crambe maritima

I have neither plants chouchou. I enjoyed reading about them.

(I opted for pickup even though it is quite a drive for me. It gives me an excuse to stop off at some other nurseries on the way).

(Are you in Ontario?)

I am in Ontario. I started shopping at Canning when I lived in Kitchener and continued while I lived in Paris which made pickup very convenient. I am now in St Thomas which is a bit of a drive but I still opt for pickup. You're lucky to have other nurseries to check out along the way! So many seem to be calling it quits these days. It's hard on avid plant collectors, no?

it's hard on avid plant collectors, no?

Yes!

Off the top of my head there are 4 superb nurseries that will be no longer operating at the start of the 2020 growing season...yes, quite sad for plant collectors.

(No HUMBER

No PLANT WORLD

No PLANT PARADISE

and the biggest lost in my opinion....

No LOST HORIZONS)

This spring, I've got a little project in mind at the historic site where I garden. I've been planting pollinator friendly shrubs and perennials in the vicinity of the bee hive so visitors can see for themselves which plants support bees and butterflies. I'm going to lift a bed of beaded iris and move those guys across the lawn to make room for a mass planting of monarda Claire Grace. Six monarda are on order from Bluestone to start that. I'm also going to use salvia Amistad massed at the end of a nearby island bed because someone here keeps recommending it. I plan to order five Amistad from Select Seeds because I never find it locally.

Very exciting cecily. Be sure to keep us up to date on its progress eg before, during and after.

cecily. - that sounds like an interesting project!

rouge - have you heard anything more re Lost Horizons? Did it sell? The website is still up but hasn’t been updated...

We found out a month or two ago that a local nursery is closing the retail portion - the land has been sold to a developer for housing. The design and installation business will apparently keep functioning for a few years. The garden centre was a bit on the expensive side but did carry interesting stuff.

chouchou - we had Crambe maritime in the garden here initially. It disappeared after a few years (poorly sited!) I really should look for another one - and put it in a better place!

I've been 'stalking' the Lost Horizons website to see if I can detect any changes to their plant list/catalog, hoping against hope that they will be around for at least one more season. I still have a long list of plants I would like to get from them!

Woodyoak, can I ask which of your local nurseries is closing? Just curious if it's one I frequent.

The crambe maritima surprised me with the fragrance of its flowers (like honey) and that's really why I want it in my current garden. 'Major Wheeler' really is a hummingbird magnet and I can't get enough of those!

chouchou - I doubt that you’d know Cudmore’s unless you live around here.

One of the the reasons I liked the Crambe was the large leaves (and the huge, frothy mass of the flowers). I really do need to look for another one....!

The best hummingbird plants we have are a Clematis stans with small tubular blue flowers, and the Heptacodium tree - beloved by bees, Monarch butterflies and hummingbirds!

Woodyoak, you're right, I don't know Cudmore's but it sure looks like you've lost a lovely place to shop. I don't believe I have ever seen the Heptacodium tree offered at my usual haunts, but after reading about it I will undoubtedly be on the lookout for it.

chouchou - oops... I was just looking at info on Crambe - we had the cordifolia, not the maritima...

I've never tried the cordifolia but have been tempted! It needs a lot of space I imagine?

I did’t find that it needed excessive space horizontally (i.e. you needed to give it room for the big leaves but it didn’t otherwise spread horizontally too much - mind you, mine died out after about 4-5 years as it was cramped by a nearby tree...) - but it did need vertical space for the tall and broad fluff of flowers!

Now I wonder how long I can resist the urge to update my Canning order!!! Thanks for the info Woodyoak.

have you heard anything more re Lost Horizons? Did it sell? The website is still up but hasn’t been updated...

I have not heard or seen any update regarding LH and its future. As you and chouchou noted the website (and the FB page) are very much out of date and of course there is no 2020 catalogue. (I have fond memories of going through the new catalogue come its January release, page by page, making a list of interesting plants that I wanted to check out on my first visit of the season.)

Just thinking ahead, there must be still so much plant stock remaining. So if the property is sold only for the home and land then one would figure that he would "liquidate" the plant materials still remaining from last Fall?

Is it OK for someone not in Canada to post in this thread?

I'm also going to use salvia Amistad massed at the end of a nearby island bed because someone here keeps recommending it.

It was the star of my garden last year. It grows into a fairly substantial plant and you may not need as many as five.

The only plant I've ordered so far is a hellebore, and now that my fever has gone down I am wondering if perhaps I was delirious at the time.

For sure Paul! (I am hoping to see lots of posts from gardeners south of our border and across the ocean).

(And if I can ask, from what company did you place that order of a hellibore?)

It's helleborus 'Sandy Shores' from Bluestone. It will probably become part of a new, very tiny shade garden in the only shady bit of my property.

I am also from "south of the border" in zone 7 outside Washington DC and have ordered numerous hostas so far from Naylor Creek. I am a little worried because I keep adding to my order-yikes. I may be in for a shock in a month or two. LOL.

Woody, I have always loved your garden! Do you think the Heptacodium tree really does need full sun? I have no place in my yard that gets full sun, but I so love that tree and I do have a spot with plenty of room that gets maybe four to five hours now that a neighbor cut down all his trees (so sad about that). However, that will change I am afraid once my Nyssa grows up. I imagine it won't bloom as abundantly, but the flowers are really what I am looking forward to seeing. Sigh. Maybe I should accept that I will need to enjoy it vicariously through you.

Cynthia

Cyn - Our Heptacodium pretty much is in full sun. It gets a very short amount of shade from a tree across the street in early morning but that only lasts an hour or two just after dawn. When it was a younger/shorter tree it got some late afternoon shade from the cedar tree to the west side of it. Actually, the west side of the Heptacodium branch structure is basically missing as it is too close to the cedar! The Heptacodium tree grew quite quickly and flowered from the first year, so you could plant it and know within a year or two whether you’d get enough flowering in your light conditions.... If you can find an inexpensive one, I’d give it a shot. When I planted ours years and years ago, all I could find was a shrub in a gallon-sized container. I bought that and cut off all the stems except the sturdiest-looking one! It has never had any winter dieback from nasty winters. So, in my experience, it’s a tough plant. Give it a shot.

Thanks, Woody. I will try to find one. It is such a lovely tree!

Added from this week's Bluestone sale: tricyrtis 'Empress,' astilbe 'Younique White,' and pulmonaria 'Majeste.'

Excellent Paul. Keep those orders coming!

(Your order of the astilbe has got me thinking again about these plants. After a few years of gorgeous results I had a couple consecutive seasons of crispy nothing (too dry) and so I got rid of them. I take it you have a reasonably damp spot for them or you consistently get good rain?)

I take it you have a reasonably damp spot for them or you consistently get good rain?

Dry spells are possible but in general the problem is too much rain. Most of my ornamentals and all vegetables are in raised beds; the shade garden won't be.

My goal for ornamentals this year is to convert as much as possible to perennials. I am not one of those finicky, too-refined gardeners who look down on bedding annuals, but in 2021 I will be away during the time for raising transplants from seed and will be limited that year to what I can direct-seed or buy.

Like rouge, Spigelia was on my list (very short) of plants to order as it is almost impossible to find locally. But even my few favored west coast mail order sources are showing it out of stock...... and I am not inclined to order across country :-) It may be yet another season before I can get my hands on it. Sigh...........

It may be yet another season before I can get my hands on it

Not allowed 'gg'! I know I have seen you post about wanting this plant for each year for the past...3? Life is short, you gotta smell the.....Spigelia ;). Get that order in.

I've been informed that I need to add several white hellebores. DH observed that the group of dark red hellebores currently blooming under our bedroom window doesn't stand out against the dark soil of the garden bed and therefore we need white. I reminded him that northern Virginia typically has snowcover in February. If it were a normal winter, my red hellebores would be spectacular. Nonetheless, I should add a few whites.

Coincidentally, DD showed me a photo on her phone of plants she had seen growing near her bus stop in downtown DC. I should grow those, they're amazing! White hellebores. I won't order them from a catalog, I prefer to choose hellebores from a local nursery where I can see the bloom color first hand.

Cecily, I cannot wait to hit Merrifield. I also head up into Maryland to a few places in the spring. Less expensive than around here!

Oh, pale yellow is a wonderful idea! Those would still show out with snow cover. Thank you for saving my marriage.

My orders have been primarily seeds and hard goods, with only a few plants.

* Stokes

* Johnny's

* John Scheeper's

* Remy's Sample Seed Shop

The seeds have been primarily annuals and vegetables, although I do have a couple perennials in there -- a tall blue balloon flower (almost impossible to find locally, it's all the dwarf varieties now) and I can't remember what else.

Hard goods:

* Parks: Kozy Coats (season extender -- for tomatoes)

* Gardener's Supply: Cloches (for vegetable starts) and Rozy Cozy rose protectors (for my DAs; see below). I haven't been pleased with the last couple things I've ordered from GS, so we'll see how these work out...

Also ordered some liquid fertilizer and mildew spray (*!&@# powdery mildew) from Johnny's .

Plants:

Select Seeds: "Pritchard's Variety" campanula and "Fama Blue" scabiosa. The Fama I have now I started from seed, but I didn't feel like monkeying around with that this year so just ordered a couple plants. I have a love-hate relationship with this plant; the flowers are a stunning shade of blue and big for a scabiosa, but dang it has the rattiest-*ss foliage. I can't resist it though...sigh. I've just learned to "hide" it behind other plants or grow where I don't have a good view of the foliage. And, you know, you guys did talk me into the campanula... LOL!

David Austin: "Royal Jubilee" rose. I normally avoid roses other than rugosas like the plague because they're plagued with so many problems, but the color, form, and scent of this one is captivating, I had to have it. The one I planted last spring did fairly well it's first year, so I decided to get another one this year for a spot that opened up in another bed.

I was going to order cardinal flower from Prairie Moon but decided to go one to of the native plant nurseries in the area in the spring instead, so I'll pick this one up then (along with a butt-load of other things, I'm sure...)

I think, but I'm not sure, that I've ordered these from Graceful Gardens, which is almost local: Delphinium 'Bellamosum,' Campanula carpatica 'Uniform White,' Coreopsis 'Sunfire,' Gaillardia 'Mesa Bright Bicolor,' Platycodon 'Hakone Double Blue,' Primula 'Supernova,' Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm,' Shasta daisy 'Bright Side.'

Regarding LH, they posted on their Facebook page in a post a few months ago that they would indeed be opening for the 2020 season. I don’t know if this has changed since then, but it was one of their last posts.

Paul, I wish you lived near me: I'd gladly gift you all the rudbeckia that you could ever desire.