Grapes and Blueberries...

My Stark's order came in yesterday.

Everything  looked pretty good. The blueberry plants will need very slow acclimation to sunlight, they have many tiny leaves that are VERY pale and tender looking. It looks like they broke dormancy in their shipping box.  But they are nice sized, the leaves are numerous and i'm sure they will take off  once they adjust.

2 Patriot:

And Blueray:

Since the grapes were just budding but not leafing out i was able to plant them immediately.  And it helps that today is rainy, they will have an easier transition with moist air and soil.

This Marechal Foch vine was the most impressive one

I had intended to take pictures of each before i planted then after, but i just needed to get them set in and watered, so i didn't.

Frontenac:

Reliance:

I pinned the planting holes in the weed barrier closed with ground staples. Later i will edge the barrier with either timbers or decorative brick and put on a light layer of bark mulch.  But i have to plant the blueberries  first and hopefully Burpee will come through with my Edelweiss grapes soon so i can get this project completed.

My Fig plant from Henry Field's came in also.  It looks ok i guess.  Its a spindly little green sprig that looks light-starved. Has 3 leaves, one large and 2 tiny. One of the small leaves has what looks like powdery mildew on it (baking soda spray will fix that). I think i might put in a complaint.  It should pull through, but really...i waited since February (and i know they could not ship it then) i submitted my order early so i thought i wouldn't end up with their late spring dredges.  I'll give it a few days, if it springs into some fresh growth i won't be too irritated. But it will be a number of months before its a $14 plant.   If i consider the whole batch of plants i bought including the citurs, it wasn't a bad buy, but the Fig is definitely the last and least in regard to value.

So, i have not heard from Burpee yet about my grapes, but they did send out their "Last chance" perennial sale email, so i take that to mean they are still doing summer shipments. I will be beyond irritated if i get a note telling me that they will send my plants next spring.... or worse, this fall.  This fall would be the worst thing because they won't have enough time to send out enough roots to get themselves established before winter. I won't have anyplace to store the plants over winter either.  I submitted my order a week ago... so i hope there is movement soon.

Oh and i have to add this, since i am recording  online ordering results.  I finally got to get a closer look at the Big Hip rose plants i bought from Oikos  at their eBay store.  They wrapped the roots well enough that i have just had them sitting in the shade until i can get to them, but by now i really had to make sure they were not going to languish there, so i opened up the wrapping and found that they had definitely sent me more than the 5 i ordered. I had guessed maybe 7 plants on arrival,  but separating them i found that they had sent me 10 of them.  This is great, cause if i end up killing half of them, i'll still have the original number i needed for their use.
It also saves me the effort of propagating the extras i thought i'd need to fill in the space.
Since i still don't have time for them for another few days, i took another kitty litter bucket, used the wood burning tool to make drainage holes in the bottom, filled it part of the way with dirt and left the rose plants in their paper pots, put them in and filed around them with dirt. Then i watered it well and set it out in a bright spot. They should be fine just like that until later.
So i was really thrilled to get an unexpected double order. Can't beat $2 a plant, shipped free. :o)