Shipping Season and Open Gardens
"Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection.”
Mark Twain.
I think I have always had this certain drive for perfection, tempered with a healthy dose of realism, the older I get the more I see the wisdom in this quote. It probably doesn’t hurt the fact that if you do something over and over again long enough you tend to improve at it a bit. I feel like the shipping season is seeing continuous improvement, the crew that packs plants has been amazing this year, and we have been getting more orders out the door every day compared to past years. So much so that I’m convinced the only thing propping up the teetering American economy is small nursery business’ and happy plant buyers. We are getting close to restocking, I’ll probably update the website early next week, so if you missed something in the first round you may have another shot at it as well as some new stuff that wasn’t ready to go out the first round. We ship to the East Coast on Mondays, the Midwest on Tuesdays and the Intermountain and Western States on Wednesdays to be sure those packages get to you in a timely manner.
The illahe shipping crew hard at work, Kaia, Aunika, Andy and Lindsey are packing your plants with care and precision.
Here is the part where if you think I only talk about plants you can turn away for a second but be sure to look back at the very end because you don’t want to miss out on the open garden announcement.
Unfortunately, we will have to be putting a bit of an upcharge onto shipping for the second round, like every other business we are feeling the pinch of the idiotic decisions being made at the leadership level of this country. UPS placed a 22% fuel surcharge on you and me because of the skyrocketing fuel prices, USPS tacked on 8 % but because of more of those idiotic leadership decisions they are vastly less reliable than the used to be. As a small business that wants desperately to keep our customers happy we can try to absorb as much of this as possible. I just want to make sure that everyone knows what I have been screaming for years now, the asshole running this country is running it into the ground. Its up to us to band together and stop the madness, I’m lucky that for the time being I can employee some great workers, and we will keep doing everything we can to combat the decline of American small business, despite the government and the corporate worlds constant efforts to destroy mainstreet America and mom and pop business’ like Illahe Rare Plants. I could say so much more about the economic situation that is setting up here, but I’ll leave it at that. I will say I’m starting to wonder where the real breaking point of this country is, our government everyday puts stumbling blocks and barricades and alligator pits in front of it’s own populace and then it laughs when we ask for something real in exchange for our contribution. Tomorrow taxes are due and in this country you can know that they won’t go to help small business or farmers, students or even be used to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, they will go to keep bombs well stocked on the Isreali front lines, they will go to line the pockets of insanely rich corporate billionaires and they will be used to fly phony politicians around the world in private jets outfitted with more luxury than you and I will ever see in our lifetimes. Spare me the 4d chess argument, everyone knows this is the last grasps of a desperately unqualified administration doing whatever they can to not face judgement for crimes they have committed not only at home but on the world stage. You and me, and everyone else in this country and around the world are feeling the fallout of that fateful Elon Musk hack job to get the demented, conman back into office. I’m only talking about shipping prices, I could go off about the death and destruction at the hands of these fools but I’ll save that for another day. Unfortunately, much like Chernobyl or Fukashima, the fallout will continue to decay and destroy for decades to come. Thank you to the customers who showed up at Hortlandia and online to purchase plants, you are keeping America alive for the time being.
Boxes of spring goodness are flying out the door!
Just a heads up , on Saturday May 16th, we are hosting our Open garden and Plant sale, members of the Columbia-Willamette Chapter NARGS are welcome to join us an hour early for shopping beginning at 10am. If you are not a member, please consider joining, it’s a fantastic group that I have been proud to be a member of for 23 plus years now. Click here to join the group and get it on this special shopping experience. The rest of you can show up from 11-2, but you will really want to be in on that early shopping as we will have some extra special plants not offered online, as well as an exclusive seedling sale, where we will put up some of our choice new offerings for you to get before they ever make it to the catalog pages.
I will post a reminder as we get closer to that and also don’t forget to look for catalog updates next week.
“Fleas can be taught nearly anything a congressman can.”…………..Mark Twain.
Fritillaria sororum, only discovered in the late 1990’s, this wonderful species is from Turkey’ s Tuarus mountains where it is found growing in oak scrublands, dominated by Quercus coccifera, and remanent meadows alongside Asphodeline lutea and Phlomis fruticosa both of which grow great for me here at illahe leading me to believe this will be a fantastic garden grower in Meditterenean like climes.