Unboxing

I suspect it’s clear that I have an especially tender soft spot for Wisconsin plant purveyor, Winter Greenhouse. While I still use other mail order plant-buying options, knowing the people behind Winter Greenhouse, along with their great care for both plants and people, puts them at the top of my list. But that doesn’t mean I cannot do an unbiased, honest review of unboxing their perennial plants. And here it is.

During one of the worst heatwaves experienced in my area in years, plants winged their way and got jostled in more than one delivery truck from Winter Greenhouse to my door. True, I know the people behind Winter Greenhouse, but I don’t live in the same state. Hence, cross-state shipping was necessary (in fact, quite a few states needed to be crossed), and my package went by UPS.

Transit

I had a tracking number, provided through a WG email generated right after my perennial plant order was placed. Travel time would span about four days. Then the heat came—heat significant enough to cancel a July 3 street fair in my area, heat that prevented patrons from visiting a July 4 arts and crafts market in town, and the list goes on.

My box… well, I took solace in the fact that perennial plants tend to be tough. But I expected they’d arrive worse for the wear. I assumed I would have to pluck off leaves that had dried along the way, douse the plants with water, wait a night to see what had survived…. My box. A heatwave. Bad timing, but what could be done?

Mid-way through the heatwave, right on time and at the fourth day mark, my box hit my front porch. I’m being literal when I phrase things in this manner. I heard a thump, and while I know my local package handlers are careful… well, it was hot… things happen. Again, I took comfort in the fact perennial plants are generally tough.

The Unboxing

Then came the unboxing: With a slit made by my scissors, I opened the box. The box was roomy, with its contents made secure with the help of two or three large pieces of paper (think of your junior high Algebra teacher’s choice of paper, and you’ll know the sort, though this was in expanded form). The paper had been crumpled and tucked into the box to keep the plants in place during shipment.

Each perennial plant was surrounded by a corrugated cardboard piece, secured around each plant pot so as to create a cage in which the foliage and flowers would sit. Inside that, each plant was in a 4.5” pot, wrapped in a plastic bag. Each bag had been taped near the plant’s base so that moisture and soil within the pot had no place to escape.

The Contents

I unwrapped Echinacea, two pots. The greenery looked fresh and fine, and there was palpable moisture within each bag. Each plant was budding. A favorite perennial pollinator plant to many, these Echinaceas were well-priced and healthy.

Korean Dwarf Goat’s Beard was next (below). This was a perennial I had been searching for, and to my delight, Winter Greenhouse had it. On this, there were three visible flower spikes… small spikes, ready to mature, open, and decorate the foliage with tiny “goats’ beards”. The foliage was fern-like, dark green, and healthy. This plant needed no water right off the bat, though I gave it a drink nonetheless; it was in great condition, as if I had purchased it close to my home.

Most unexpected for me was the unboxing of Japanese Spikenard. As I peered inside its corrugated sleeve, I saw many large leaves, cradled within the pliable cardboard that was ever-so-slightly damp. In slitting the tape that held this paper wrapper in place, I watched the leaves unfurl beautifully… no dry leaf margins, no breakage.

For me, Spikenard is a hard-to-find perennial… same with the Goat’s Beard. Both had made it to my doorstep with no damage. Both were far more well-developed than I would have expected. Both had been ordered with ease. I hadn’t had to lug anything around a garden center or wait at the register at a smaller plant shop. I hadn't spent a fortune at a boutique plant seller's space. I hadn’t had to drive from place to place to find the plant combinations I wanted. My budget was intact, and the plants were thriving. 

Packaging

I have ordered plenty of perennial plants from other online shops. I’ve been happy with some, and not so happy with others. Disappointment with some has stemmed from their use of messy and/or ineffective shipping materials. Not the case with my Winter Greenhouse box. The packaging provided an ideal cushion and moisture barrier, and these packing materials were manageable for me to unwrap and recycle.

Size of Plants

The size of the plants I received really impressed me. The plants I unpacked had very good growth behind them. Ordering 4.5” pots from the wrong sellers can result in receiving some very small plants. However, my Winter Greenhouse plants were a fine size, with the Echinacea not tall and towering yet, but already showing buds, and with my other two plants arriving in quite large and very full form.

Quality of Soil

I realized that what was really unusual, even when I compare the Winter Greenhouse plants to what I can get at a good plant shop quite close to my home: nothing from WG was root-bound. The soil fell from the plants, like the “chocolate cake crumbs” that gardeners consider a good likeness to great soil… a very dark, rich, and loose soil mix that cradled moist and healthy roots. It was as though the plants had been dug just prior to shipping. 

Enclosed in the box was a shipping card—a pretty four-color printed postcard, adorned with a photo of the Mimosa pudica plant. This was the same sort of card I had received in other plant shipments in the past. It indicated that my package was a Winter Greenhouse package, and I was glad that it was.

Summing Up

Unboxing, for me, is a YouTube sort of thing. Don’t get me wrong: I like YouTube. But I’m not one to be influenced by others. However, I do find that it’s a help to know what I will be getting when I order something. Knowing that the impressions of this recent Winter Greenhouse perennial shipment match my experience with other WG shipments of the past—one case in point, a big box of multiple trays of Creeping Phlox, ordered at the end of the season but miraculously arriving in bloom and in moist containers that preserved healthy roots—I’m confident in saying that what I have described here is generally what you can expect. 

Plants are living things. We know that extreme heat or cold can do them damage. At busy shipping times, boxes can get awfully delayed or harshly trampled… sometimes, both. But the shippers at Winter Greenhouse try to time things to account for holidays and weekends when everything might slow to a halt. (Plants can do fine with traveling, but they may suffer quite a bit if shipping comes to a standstill.) The shippers insert mini heat packs when needed in the colder weather, and they send off their plants in adequately hydrated form during the hotter months. If things go awry, they’re a phone call away. But I’ve never had to make that call.

Unboxing. I recommend it highly. Get yourself a nice plant or two, shipped to your door.