Question about Cooley's

Last year was my first to order from Cooley's. They had a Gold Cup program, where you were discounted 50% if your order was over so much. This does not appear on their website this year. I am wondering if anyone knows if they have stopped doing this.
Thanks!

I bet they still do it, maybe more for the catalog version. you can always email them, most are really good about replys.

Cooley's has had the gold cup 50% off certain irises for as long as I can remember. I suggest you contact them too. Who knows with the prices of everything else sky rocketing they may be making some changes, but I seriously doubt it.Good Luck and Happy Gardening,
Marian

Well, I received this response to my email to Cooley's-

No, we have done away with our Gold Cup offer, but almost all plants are just over 1/2 price. Exceptions are the new introductions and newer plants that we don't have alot of stock in. We have cut back on acreage this year and the amount you see listed for stock is all that will be available. Please check out that Gold Cup Offer to the left on our home page. You still get to select a free plant for every $60.00 you pay.

Thank you,
Kati Ernst
Cooley's Gardens Inc.

I wonder why they cut back on acreage

Probably had to cut back on workers for what they were able to sell.

all mail order nurseries are really hurting and having trouble making ends meet. not too surprising they are backing off acreage. It takes $ to bring in a crop. The droughts throughout the USA haven't helped the last few years, but business has been drying up for a while as folks had less and less discretionary income. Ernst spent a fortune on developing a red iris last few years. Dont' know how that panned out.

hybridizers also cut production - Tempo Two (Blyth), Keppel, and Ghio have all (semi) retired, think Kerr is doing the same. Opal Brown, Chadwick, Zurbrigg and Innerst are dead now, the Meeks are elderly and in ill health. should be interesting to see what new blood takes their places with TBs, next generation time. Superstitions' fellas and Mid Amer's duo are all looking great, and Spoons (Winterberry Gardens) are awesome but a small production.

Schreiner's and Aitkens seem to be doing okay and some, like Snowpeake, are growing.

This message was edited Mar 12, 2009 11:08 PM

I can't wait to see what all seedlings Dee introduces in the next few years.

As for Schreiners, how would we even know if they cut back on acreage? it already seems to stretch on forever!

NAAA, I cannot see Schreiners cutting back on acreage, they have been there for generations, it would really surprise me.
I would love to hybridize, but I need to take baby steps here since I am a one woman show, right now everyone thinks I am crazy, but I could care less what anyone thinks. I just recieved last falls issue of Tall Talk and Tom Burseen has a great article in there about hybridizers, I can totally relate to him out there plowing fields on Christmas Day and people staring at him like he's nuts, I actually laughed out loud at that one. I would have had a Santa suit on while plowing if I was him.

Burseen is a hoot -- at least from the way he names his irises.

We just received a printed catalog from Cooleys--not the big one with pictures, more of a flyer. You can still order a big one if neccessary. The pictures in the 2008 catalog can be used. Fine for me as I also buy the bearded irises for the ISM members' auction. So I wait until the catalogs all come for that one. Someone else orders the beardless.

Hybridizers are weird, but fun. Where do people who order all sorts of flowers, or buy them at garden centers think that they originate.

I thought the ones I met at the AIS convention were normal -- but fun. But then some people would say that I am so wierd that I wouldn't know a wierd person if I saw one.

You didn't seem more weird than the rest of us. I found the Exel, thank you. I couldn't find the right thread on which to tell you.

Irisarians are not weird at all. Just plain serious about what they do, and you cannot accomplish anything by sitting on the couch.

Doesn't matter, I answer all iris threads except identification ones where I am no help at all. Well when you open up Excel you will see a large grid. Columns and rows can be numbered. I track my irises on ones -- the new ones I get each year, where they are planted, etc. etc. If you fiddle with it, you will figure it out. In fact, fiddling with things is how people who are really good at computers figure them out. The manuals help, but just seeing what you can do with them is better. I once had a computer teacher who was in charge of a large system. His advise to all of us in CS 101 was to see if we could break the system. if we could, he hadn't done his job. That made me a lot more relaxed. I doubt if you can break anything playing with Excel.

I sit on the seat part of my kneeler & write out tags after making crosses. No one can see me from the street & shrubs are between us & the neighbors. Shhh!

I was only stumped with adding and subtracting cells, but I figured it out, really simple, great program for me.

Will only break things in the room at which I throw other things. Again, thank you for your help.

I will have to fiddle with it in the morning when I am fresh.

HEHE, my neighbors thought I was not only nuts but not friendly, I had to explain to them if I waved at everyone that drove down the road I would not get anything accomplished, after that I would hear a specific 4 wheeler coming down the road and I would have to hide, otherwise they would talk my ear off.

Really northern neighbor is fine. Southern one doesn't like us because she did not know where the lot line was & thought & probably still thinks DH cut a tree on her property. Also have shrubs at the wall at the front of our property so can't wave. We WILL wave when we pick up the mail from the rural mailbox.

My neighbors probably think I am crazy because I don't hear very well and after I ask them what? several times, I answer what I think they are asking. I wear hearing aids, but I still don't hear that well outdoors which is where I see my neighbors. Besides, one of them has a thick foreign accent and I really don't get what she says. It is embarrassing but I don't know what else to do.

Several of my neighbors don't like my composting in my vacant lot. The county supports me though, so they just have to live with it. But they do so grumpily. They all want to buy my vacant lot, but it isn't for sale. That's where I raise veggies and fruit trees and keep new irises that I haven't made a place for and do my composting. One neighbor wants to buy it so her father and mother can live there and grow veggies for her. The other wants to put her camper on it. I really wish I could live out in the country far from neighbors.
I once had a neighbor get really mad at me for cutting down a tree she knew was on my property. It seems she used it for Christmas arrangements each year. Neighbors will run your life if you let them. Then, of course there are the nice ones who help you put up with you no matter what. Those are the ones I like.

We have the best neighbors in the whole wide world. We moved to a place 18 years ago that is 1/2 mile off the road. The property we own is 63 acres and fronts on another road we don't live on, there is a muck there, but the neighbors on the road our roadway is on are all Taylors. It used the be the Taylor farm, but was parceled out over the years. When we first moved here we thought they might take offense as we were buying a piece of the old farmstead, and would be the only non Taylors around. There are five Taylor properties up and down the road and us. We actually have all the property in the middle of the Taylor square.

They have been the kindest, most wonderful neighbors one could ever imagine. They help us, they check on us, they would do anything for us. When my dog, that was epileptic used to get loose (he was a relative of Houdini), they would chase him until one of them finally caught him. When we had an ice storm, and couldn't get out for days, they cut their way up our roadway to get us out.

And we treat them the same. It's wonderful living out here in the country.

Your place and your neighbors sound wonderful and very similar to my place and neighbors in Mississippi -- as long as one doesn't bring up politics. But here in town we are all cheek by jowl and this one wants me to cut down or move trees shading her roses -- the trees ( all but 1) were there before the roses. They don't want me to park in front of their house. They don't like my compost and they don't like the smell of the grass clippings ( which smelled like fresh mowed hay) in my vacant lot. I have been here over 10 years and we all get along and look out for one another, but it isn't like on the farm where people can't see your property or you theirs. My house is on 1/4 acre and my vacant lot is also 1/4 acre which gives me the largest property in the neighborhood. Everyone wants my vacant lot, but I had first option to buy it when I bought my house and I took the deal and never looked back.

ah me. Pajar is right. playing around on a computer is best way to learn. DH did that on a Navy ship with a "kit" computer in 1970s, I learned by seat of my pants in late 80's.

So envious of your neighbors and your extra lot! Real estate folks in Raleigh figured out over 20 years ago how to prevent folks from getting more than one lot in a neighborhood, increases their revenue. I've looked for a double lot in north Raleigh for years, never found one.

Also have a neighbor extremely peeved at me for cutting a tree. what is there about that? I hired a pro, too. Our across the street neighbor is wonderful, but he is really into lawns. He just about flipped out when I dug up the lawn for irises. At our last home, when my husband was extremely ill and the lawn got a bit high, our new next door neighbor banged on our door one evening and demanded that I hire lawn care. Wonder why some folks are like this? I would never in ten million years tell someone else what to do with their land or home.

I couldn't agree more, bonjon, but I think a lot of people think it is all written in some Great Book of Rules and they have a right to insist on the enforcement of those rules.
I do feel very lucky to have the vacant lot. A former boss of mine who was had lived in Toronto people there were not allowed to have undeveloped housing lots. It was required that they be developed!
I would love to live in the country, but I don't know how I would ever get DH out there.

^_^ well, I tried to get my DH to Harnett Cty. could have bought a bigger, but not very well built modular home with 2 acres, one in farmland, and a pond for irrigation, and 21 acres available next door to sharecrop! but no, Harnett's schools are not as good, and he said I needed to be nearer my folks who are now elderly.

Sigh! DH's can sure slow us down at times.

Yes, and so can DBF'S, but at least he helps a bit.

Well I was super lucky here, because in CA we owned just a track size load and not big either enough for a nice patio with hot tub and that was it for back and you did not dare then plant pretties in the front as they got picked. When we started looking in OR both of us wanted 3-5 acres, and they could not be found! This 10 acres was the smallest unless we wanted town..He bought the house because the shop is any mans dream come true, it is truly bigger than the house, built in air compressor all the the way around, a paint booth with air fans, 3 small offices and the huge working area as prior owner was an auto body shop...fit for honey as he likes to restore Model A's...the land was my our dream for animals and flowers...had no idea I would end up in the business.

Our front neighbors kids did drugs and drank but never bothered us, just kept the place looking like a dump, now he is cleaning it all up,all the cars dumped all over the property are gone, and he is doing brush clearing now...will look nice sometime this year, our next door neighbor to the right of drive has a section of land 144 acres, and the house is a mansion on the other end, so next to use is trees, grass crop and lakes, the back neighbor and other side neigbors are super! We all can pretty much do what we want here.

We have never been sorry we did this. We had sheep, goats, geese, and chickens and as of last night no animals at all...so no hauling the feed for them which was getting hard for honey.

D

Sounds beautiful, Dee.

Betty, why not move to your place in Mississippi, when and if you can get your hubby to retire. I would go in a heartbeat.

Yes, Polly I love my place...hoping that all will be beautiful come 6-21-09 which is the wedding. My son wanted to come to day to prune...OH NO...told him NOT today as his idea of pruning is almost to the ground...and what he has to prune is the two hedges, one bush, the arch that has winter jasmine and climbing rose on it...

So it is safer for the plants and my nerves for him to come Sun...LOL...

Got a bunch of plugs for .05 each of stocks and marigolds for the annual flush of color in the main garden where they will get married. Thinking of lining the path with an annual in full color for them

D

I think lining the path with an annual would be gorgeous. Whiich one do you have in mind?

1913cat Did you join the TBIS society? I ask because when I joined they sent the catalog with Burseen article. Did you see the picture of the iris borer? I thought they were white and looked like an overgrown maggot.

Well here colors and plants are blue daisies green and ivory dresses and hers is sage/ivory (still have to make it for her) and her arrangement is hyrandras with steps, pearls and she loves the earthy colors...so have white stock right now...hopefully they will be in bloom, if not open to suggestions...

Arch still have not decided what to do besides the netting.

Wedding time 3:30P

D

Polly, I would move to Mississippi in a heartbeat but DH is still working and doesn't plan to retire -- ever. He is a physicist and an amateur actor and he fears he wouldn't be able to find much of either in Mississippi and he may be right. Maybe not, too. I have had to choose between country life and DH and, well frankly, he is a great guy and he won.
Right now I spend as many vacations as I can at the farm -- once or twice a year and I have begun planting Louisiana Iris and a few TBs there just to see how they do. I think the LA's will be great. Less sure about TBs.

Dee, the wedding sounds absolutely beautiful. You are giving your son and his bride a wonderful gift by doing the whole thing yourself. You are a bundle of energy. Wish my DH were more into the country life. Unfortunately, he thinks dirt is icky.

Dee, and you have to make the dress too? This wedding isn't much stress for you, is it, LOlL If you have a lot of bees, stock might not be a good idea, but if they're not a problem, it would be lovely.

Betty, don't give up the good guy, they are hard to find. But can't you talk him into retireing someday, and wintering in Miss.? Or would his job let him work seasonal? I'm in the same boat. I'm trying to talk my husband into wintering south. But he has a retirement home business selling lightbars, and he would miss the grandkids terribly. He sees them once a week, and I see them three times a week, so I guess it wouldn't affect me as much. But I am so tired of winters here.