I ordered the following on Ebay and the seller did an amazing job of packing the very healthy starts that were sent.
You can find their Ebay store here. The photos below are from their site–I highly recommend them based on their prices and the beautiful, healthy plants hey sent.
Hosta “Fragrant Blue”
Heuchera “Dolce Silver Gumdrop”–this picture doesn’t lie! The leaves of this gorgeous cultivar look exactly like this.
Here is Astilbe “Color Flash Lime”. This one was showing the bright lime foliage, but not yellow as it appears in the photo. We’ll see what the semi-sun exposure in the Doug fir bed will do to its color.
This gorgeous hosta is “Stained Glass.”
Here you can see starts I received. The packaging was amazing–each plant had craft paper wrapped around the pot and leaves and folded over and taped. In addition, the soil was secured in the pots with plastic bags tied tightly around each plant stem. This packaging was brilliant and effective!
All of these plants went out into the Doug fir bed this morning. I have had success with one hosta out there, so I am hoping to build on that and add a few more and plants that like similar situations.
The biggest concern is the dryness of that raised bed. The tree sucks all the moisture out of the soil and out of the air. The ground was extremely dry when I planted the starts today. I set the sprinkler to water them in well for an hour. I’ll have to really watch it next summer, though, and water that whole area regularly until the starts are established. Hopefully, I’ll have a drip system in there and that will make it easier.