Well, Mother’s Day weekend 2009 is history.  Lots of hanging baskets and other beautiful flowers went riding home to moms all over the Ohio Valley this weekend.  But if you didn’t get yours yet, don’t worry! There are still more to choose from at Ferda’s Garden Center.  Also lots of bedding plants, vegetable plants, trees and shrubs.  The season has only just begun.

When you are looking around your yard, trying to decide what flowers and shrubs you would like to plant, don’t forget that we have a We Plan/You Plant program that can help.  We come to your home and talk with you about your wants and needs for a specific area in your yard, and leave you with a sketch and plant suggestions for the space.  The cost for this service is $100, payable before the appointment.  With your sketch, we give you a coupon for $50 to use on the purchase of your plants for the area– minimum purchase $200– so the program ends up costing you only $50.  If you decide that you want us to install the landscape, then we apply the entire $100 to the cost of the installation.

Call today for details and to set up an appointment for your consultation. 

Rain, rain, go away! Come again some other day– but not for a while, OK? 

I guess too much rain is better than not enough, but right now I could use some sun.  How about you?  I can’t keep up with pulling the weeds.  The rain makes them grow double time, and I refuse to sit and pull weeds in the rain.  That’s just above and beyond the call of duty, in my opinion.

Come into the greenhouses right now and you’ll be overwhelmed by the colors! There are flowers blooming in every hue from the calm and cool whites and blues to the kick-it-up-a-notch hot pinks, reds and oranges!  Shop this week and we’ll have a surprise for you at the register– a money-saving coupon good on your next purchase!

Our May newsletters went out today to those of you who have shared your email address with us.  If you’d like to get a newsletter, there is a sign-up link on the home page.  Click there and give us your info.  (We’ll never spam you or share or sell your email address–we promise!)

Wow! Haven’t we had some nice days for the weekend and Monday? I know what many of you have been doing lately.  Planting all the shrubs, perennials, herbs and veggies you got this weekend. 

New stuff is coming.  The rest of the hanging baskets arrive on Wednesday, flats of annuals will be here on Thursday, and more perennials will be here one day this week.  Come in and see what is new!

Thanks to all of you who came to our Spring Garden Party yesterday.  We hope you enjoyed yourself, got a hot dog and soaked up some sun.  (We certainly had great weather for it, didn’t we?) Come back next weekend for the Fabulous Fern Frolic. No hot dogs, but sale prices on all the ferns in stock.

I’m off to attend the wedding of our Landscape Manager, Dawn.  May she and her new husband, Dave, have many happy years together!

Growing our own vegetables and herbs seems to bring a sense of control over our lives—Heaven knows there’s a lot we have no control over—at least we can control what and how we eat.  Sure, there is an investment in time to get the growing area ready.  Either we need to get an area (in full sun, if possible) dug up and ready to plant in, or we need to get some big patio pots or planters full of soil that are sited and ready for growing.  And there is a learning curve if we’ve never done this before. How exactly do we grow onions and tomatoes and lettuce and peppers…

If you haven’t visited Ferda’s this season, you may not know that we now carry spices and seasoning blends from Frontier Natural Products Co-op.  Now that you are cooking more at home to save money and eat healthier, adding flavor to your dishes is more important that ever.  Come in and check out all the wonderful flavors!

And, if that isn’t enough to bring you in, here’s a source for a $1.00 off coupon you can print out from Eating Well Magazine.  Print the coupon and bring it in for $1.00 off a bottled spice or seasoning blend.  (The coupons cycle through, so if it isn’t available on your first attempt, try the link again later, or click the “shop” button along the top and choose “Coupons” from the drop down menu.) See you soon, and “Happy cooking!”

I say, “Good job!” to the Obamas for their breaking ground for a kitchen garden on the White House lawn.  And this won’t be just a symbolic garden, but one that will grow vegetables, fruit and herbs for use in the White House kitchen, and potentially provide the excess to a local food pantry. 

Proponents of the local food movement have been urging presidents to do this for many years, but the Obamas are the first to actually do it since Eleanor Roosevelt.  I think this will be a boost to the “eat local” movement, as well as to sellers of seeds and vegetable plants.  It may have a positive effect as well on Farmers Markets, as folks fill in the blanks in their diet with veggies they haven’t managed to grow for themselves. 

I’m sure there will be lots of critics of the plan out there (Rush Limbaugh will probably hope all the vegetables die) but I say, “Congratulations, and thank you!”

Our Mulch Madness sale begins next week.  Get a jump start on your spring clean up and save some money, too.  Order a load of mulch (3 yard minimum for this offer) and take delivery by April 10th, and we’ll deliver withing 25 miles of the Garden Center for FREE!  Hurry! Offer ends April 5th.  Call for details (740-546-4467.)

We have seed potatoes and onion sets in stock now, for those of you who have raised beds or soil that is well-drained enough to be workable this early.  (Years ago the tradition was to plant seed potatoes on St Patrick’s Day, March 17th.  I have a raised bed that is ready, so I’m going to start them that day and see if the old farmers are right.)

The cabbage-family plants are being hardened off outdoors, too and will be ready for you this week.

Are you planning to grow vegetables, herbs, or flowers from seed this year?  It’s a way to save even more money on your food or flower garden, and not really very hard to do.  Stop in Ferda’s Garden Center next week and check out our selection of seeds and seed-starting supplies.  We expanded the varieties of seeds we carry in the Livingston Seed       racks by about 25%, and we added a rack from Botanical Interests Seeds.  The great thing about Botanical Interests Seeds is the information inside the envelopes. 

 Check out their website for lots of information about starting seeds.