frustration with buying lilies

Can anyone reccommend a store that consistently sends the type of lily you want? For instance I have purchased 15 stargazer lilies over three years. What I have received is only 9! Every single order has a mixture of unwanted bulbs!! Oranges, whites, etc. etc. Is there a nursery on this earth that will send you exactly what you want?
Thanks :-)

Boy you have my sympathy. I just waited for a dahlia to bloom only to find it is the wrong one. Last year the same out fit send glads and over half were not what I ordered. Ordered an azalea from another outfit and waited two years to find out it was the wrong color. I have not had that problem with lilies however. The Lily Garden, B&D Lilies are both very well thought of. Where did you order?

Also, Faraway Gardens is great.

dwendt - from whom did you order them?

I also would recommend Faraway Flowers. Ramona (our own Mainiac on DG) is a great seller and as her ad says, "We want you to be THRILLED".

Does Faraway ship to Alaska? I guess I can look them up and check. Like to patronize 'our own." :)

Mary, it should. Alaska is really "far away."

Great sense of humor there, Cathy/Marcia!

ha-ha-ha. :)

Yes, FF does ship to Alaska!

I went on the site and placed an order yesterday. I messed something up and Ramona was great. And WOW! You should see the lilies she is offering this year! I've never HEARD of some of them. And they are gorgeous and very reasonable.

Ramona is so helpful. I garden by the theory of color echoes and color harmony so when one lily wasn't available due to crop failure she was quick to suggest another one with the same colors for me. I can't rave enough about her.

It took me 3 years to get used to mixed up colors in plants and bulbs,it happens.
I have never ordered a oriental lily and recieved a different variety in a color unheard of for that lily.
Dont do business with anyone who you havnt checked on Garden Watchdog.
B&D lilies are also good.

The Lily Garden and B& D always get it right, and I have been ordering for years. There can always be mix ups, even with top companies. There are some very highly rated companies that have sent me and others the wrong lilies - one of them is a Watchdog 30. I had an excellent experience with Faraway Flowers last year, which is why I am ordering from Ramona. Buggy was reliable too.

But think of it this way. One company sent me 4 incorrectly labeled peonies. It took me quite a while to figure it out, since those babies take a long time to bloom. And take up ton of room!

This message was edited Aug 20, 2011 7:30 PM

Ouch on the peonies Donna. I would have had a melt down. Well, I went to Faraway and ended up ordering BonBini and Butterscotch Sundae. I have no idea where I will put them Since I have about 20 coming from The Lily Garden. All your collective faults!!! Every time I hear of a new company I have to look, and you know what looking leads to. But they are lovely flowers.

I'm not bragging but I thought I didnt have room for anymore lilies.
I ended up with 80 varieties in fall of 2010. Some varieties were more than 3 bulbs per.
TheLilynook order included 18 Tiny Snowflake
among other border varieties.
The Lily Garden order was a dozen mixed
Buggies order was mixed asiatics the webpage said 25 bulbs but she sent 32.
I have over 300 lilies now.
An un named enabler here told me lilies can be planted in with hostas that get some sun as well as she said digging a big diameter hole and planting 3 bulbs at a time,this is a big savings in energy for me.
Lily footprints are so small they fit anywhere.

so you plant three bulbs together? Or only certain kinds of lily bulbs? Some of my big ones have about 3/4 inch to 1" stalks. And one looks like it is sending up babies around itself.

I plant Asiatic bulbs as well as OT's and Orientals.I dig a 8 to 12 inch diameter x 6 inch deep( lily fanatics will say the hole needs to be deeper and I agree, i have physical limitations and cant dig deeper holes but the lilies grow anyway).
I plant 3 same variety lilies in the hole.
Babies will come,harvest them,toss them,give them a new spot, whatever.
I am more of a thug gardener I guess.

No, your my kind of gardener. And I wouldn't want to go deeper than 6". In fact I never have. I will try it that way when mine arrive. I am not all that impressed when I plant them like little soldiers around the yard. I order 3 of each, but then split them up. I like your way better.

I've always just dug a hole and planted them all together. Easier on the old body!

Picture is worth a thousand words, thank Pirl.

You're welcome, MC. They were planted with the roots in the soil and not just as you see them but the placement was the same. I like them in groups but should have been more careful with the colors. Live and learn.

Oh, I think they are a beautiful grouping. the white ones? Phlox?

Yes! The deer haven't found them...yet.

I have several phlox sublata, and five or so phlox paniculata. White, pink and blue. Was surprised at how tall the paniculata turned out. Some are over 48". I really love the creeping kind and have a lot of it along paths and down the pond waterfalls to soften rock

I was hopeing Pirl would show up with a picture.Thanks

There are no hostas around my lilies. I'm too afraid of injuring a lovely lily by digging a hosta that's spread too much.

MC - I have scads of creeping phlox as well but prefer your description of how you have them planted over where I have them along the driveway weaving in and out of the rose garden and the major Japanese iris garden.

I have put them in a lot of new spots this summer, along with arabis and aurbeita just to see how they do next summer. the front edges of my garden beds which surround the back lawn look yukky and I can't plant anything that overhangs the lawn as my lawn people are garden challenged. Had to almost threaten to fire them if they didn't stop weed wacking the bark off my climbing rose, honeysuckle and lilac out front. You could see by the leaves on the lilac the damage they were doing. I put a fence around them (little green wire on) and they tromped it into the grass the first time.

Thats a nightnare. There was a post years ago frome someone whose lawn crew weedwacked his entire DayLily bed.

We did fire the last guy who mowed/edged/blew out the cut grass. He kept blowing the grass towards the gardens though he was told repeatedly not to do it that way but to blow it towards the lawn.

They just dont get it.

Some similar jerks kept cutting the lower limbs off my smokebushes and my Baileyi linden. They couldn't be bothered to get off their riding mowers and do the job right.

Arabis is a great choice because it actually benefits from a shave from time to time. That's why I put it in, along with nepeta Dawn to Dusk and fragaria vesca reugen. They can survive careless blades.

I use a pair of scissors to trim back the ground covers like phlox, arabis, thyme, etc. It just makes it bushier. Does your nepeta get invasive?

It does seed readily. It forms little plantlets near the mother plant. I pick them up and transplant them. They are very easy to control, bloom repeatedly through the season and frankly, I really can't have too much of it. It's a gorgeous plant. It's great around roses, but it's also one of those plants that you can put in a hot dry place where you don't water but you want it to look good. The white version (Snowflake) is shorter and far more subdued.

It's wonderful if you don't have cats! Around here, we have a lot of ferral cats, and every time my Nepata starts looking good, the cats start wallowing, and eating it, and completely mash it down. The ones that don't eat it think it's a nice soft bed to sleep in!

Well, they don't call it catmint for nothing. lol

What's funnier is that none of my cats have ever been impressed with it, except as a bed.

My cats have never shown the least bit of interest in catmint (walkers low), but catnip is another story!

I had to keep Walkers Low in a age for the first few weeks it appears in spring. Once its going I remove the cages and the cats trim the plant.

LOL! I wouldn't mind them trimming it, but just as it starts blooming well, I go out and find it flattened! None of my cats liked catnip either. Actually, I never caught them nibbling on anything but grass, though the one old gal I have left would pull any new plants that she felt were in her way.