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Do you have a printed/paper catalog? Will you send
me one?
Our catalog is online only.
Currently we do not have a print catalog.
Can I visit and shop in your
greenhouse? Can I pick up my order?
We are strictly a mail order
operation with no retail storefront, guest parking, or
sales staff.
Our benches are full of plants that are already
committed for sale, so we cannot allow visitors to pick
from those plants. After our shipping season ends in
early June we empty the greenhouse and close for the
summer and fall and no longer carry plants for sale.
Our business is internet based, and we accept orders via
our secure shopping cart, fax, or U.S. Mail. (Please visit
our
Ordering Information
page.) Questions can
be asked through our email address:
rosydawngardens@comcast.net
Can I call you with a question or
place a telephone order?
We do not have a telephone in the greenhouse and we
do not have office staff to answer the telephone.
Our daytime hours are extremely busy with work and
family responsibilities. Most of our greenhouse
correspondence and invoicing is done at odd hours,
so email is the best way to contact us. Please email us
at
rosydawngardens@comcast.net
for the
fastest response. (cut and paste this address into your
email program if you do not use Microsoft Outlook.) Our email is answered daily from
December to June. We shut down our greenhouse operation
and business for the year in mid-June, so email received
by us during the summer and fall when we are busy with
other facets of our life may not be answered on a daily
or even weekly basis. Please be patient!
If you absolutely have to speak to us on the telephone
please send us an email with your telephone number and
the best times to reach you and
we will try to get back to you within a few days.
Do you sell coleus seeds?
We sell only Coleus plants propagated from cuttings.
None of the varieties we sell are even available as
seeds! (see next question)
Do you sell Black Dragon, Wizard,
Rainbow, Fairway, Kong, Carefree, Giant Exhibition,
Palisandra, or other seed-grown coleus?
Those are seed-grown varieties. We sell only cutting-grown coleus varieties,
which enables us to offer a much larger selection of
coleus that are generally more sun-tolerant and less
likely to bloom. Seed-grown coleus are usually purchased in flats or pots at
a local
nursery.
Do you offer wholesale pricing?
No, we do not sell wholesale.
Rosy Dawn Gardens is a small, family-owned, retail business.
We do not have the space to grow plug sheets of plants
to sell wholesale to nurseries or landscapers. We exist to serve home gardeners
and plant collectors that want a large selection of
reasonably priced plants from which to choose.
Do you ship overseas?
We do not ship outside of the U.S.
How many coleus plants do I get for
the price?
Our plants are individually priced. Each plant is
$4.75. We do not sell wholesale or offer quantity
discounts. You will receive one or more bonus
plants of our choice depending on the size of your
order.
If I order a lot of plants can I get a price break?
We do not offer price breaks for large orders. Our low,
one-price handling charge is a built-in price break for
large orders. We also send bonus plants based on the size
of your order as a "thank you" for your business. Bonus
plants are our choice, but we will try to choose coleus
that will combine well with other plants in your order.
Will you ship United
Parcel Service (UPS)?
We find US Priority Mail to be the most economical way
to ship from this area, and we have based our prices
accordingly. If a customer requests UPS we require a
$10.00 surcharge to offset the extra cost of shipping.
When will my order be shipped?
We ship on Saturday, Monday or Tuesday of each
week of the shipping season, with exceptions for postal holidays.
Please request a shipping date on your
order. We will try to meet your chosen date, but your requested shipping
date may have to be delayed until your plants are
mature enough to ship. If no date is specified on your order
form, we will send your order after the frost free date for your zone. You will be
notified by email when your order ships. Our shipping
season ends June 2, 2008, when we shut down our
operation until December 1, 2008. Orders placed after
June 2, 2008 will be held for shipping in spring of
2009. We are sorry that we cannot ship into the summer
months but once we hit June the higher temperatures in
the greenhouse make it difficult to propagate quality
plants. We have also found that shipping in the heat of
summer is too stressful for the coleus..
Please order early, as we are happy to hold your plants until your requested ship date
or until weather permits shipping. Please
consider vacations, etc. when requesting your ship date. If you cannot be
home when your plants arrive please arrange for someone to watch for your plants
or instruct the mail carrier as to a safe place to place
the box until you arrive. You might also request that
the post office keep the package for you to pick-up.
Our shipping season begins the last week of March,
weather permitting. We reserve the right to
use our discretion when deciding if it is safe to ship
Coleus, and we consider the weather both at departure
and arrival when making this determination. It is absolutely crucial for the
survival of cold-sensitive Coleus to wait until the weather is safe.
We will delay shipping when
weather of any kind (hot, cold, hurricane) could threaten the safety of your
plants at any point during the shipping process. Please keep in mind that
our greenhouse operation is in Michigan, so no matter
how warm it is where you live, in March and sometimes
beyond we are often under several inches of snow and
experiencing freezing temperatures.
What size pots do you use?
We grow our plants in a growing mix contained in a root
permeable, degradable fabric sleeve. This allows us to
produce a nice-sized starter plant in relatively little
soil. The root ball will be approximately 1 3/4" in
diameter X 1 3/4" high. For a picture click on
growing method. The
advantage for the customer is that this growing system allows us to
keep our shipping costs far below those of our
competitors that grow and ship in pots of soil. You pay
for the plant, not for mailing the soil. Your plants
arrive clean and unbroken because there are no pots of
loose dirt ready to dump their contents all over your
order. Another
advantage is that we can offer you a much larger
collection from our limited space than if we were
growing all of our plants in traditional pots. We aim to
provide “one-stop shopping” for our coleus customers!
How big are the plants that you sell?
Most plants that we ship are single or multi-stemmed and between
four and twelve inches in height, depending on the
cultivar. Coleus cultivars vary widely in
height, leaf shape, and habit. Some coleus are small and grow very slowly,
sometimes taking months to grow just a few inches in
height. Others root rapidly
and bolt out of the gate with vigorous growth. We try to indicate in the
catalog descriptions when a plant is small or
slow-growing, so please read carefully before ordering.
Please note: We grow and ship husky starter plants ready to
pot up and grow on. They are not full grown plants!
Which Coleus will take full sun?
A lot of
companies have been promoting “sun coleus” and, in fact,
many varieties are sun-tolerant. However, "full
sun" is a relative, as well as misleading, term. Full sun in Michigan where we
live is a whole different thing than full sun in Florida
or Texas or Arizona. Another relative term is "grow."
Growing or surviving is different than "thriving." Many
coleus will survive and grow in full sun but constant
exposure to strong sunlight can alter the coloring of
the plant and greatly increase the need for water. The
best location for the truest color in coleus, in our
opinion, is a spot that receives some sun (preferably
morning sun) but is
protected from the harshest sun of the middle and/or
late day. Of course, many people do not have an ideal
exposure available in which to grow coleus, so
experimentation is certainly in order. Many of our
customers have success in full sun. Red, burgundy,
deep purple, and medium to dark green varieties generally do well with
a lot of sun. Plants with spots, stripes, and
variegation along with white, yellow, gold, and chartreuse
varieties can become "greened out" and less attractive
by the excess coloring produced by the plant to protect
itself from the sun. See our
Selection Guide page for
more information on the varieties of coleus that can tolerate
sun.
Why do some coleus that look the
same have different names?
In the absence of a Coleus Society or registry for
hybridizers, many Coleus cultivars have been claimed,
renamed, and even patented by nurseries or companies
that had nothing to do with developing that cultivar.
Coleus are also very generous with producing "sports,"
which are mutations that can be propagated and sold as a
new variety. The same sport may occur spontaneously at
different nurseries and each might claim it as a new
introduction and give it their own name. This causes a
lot of confusion for Coleus enthusiasts! We try to list
the common alias for each variety in the description.
All types of coleus are now in the genus Solenostemon
scutellarioides, so technically the name "Coleus blumei"
or "Coleus hybridus" no longer exists. Most of our plants
labeled with the common name "Coleus" fall into the
former Coleus blumei category, although some of the the
trailing varieties were formerly labeled C. pumilus or C. rehneltianus.
Are your coleus organic?
When we first started
selling coleus we hoped
to sell an organically
grown product, since we
have always gardened
organically.
Unfortunately the
wonderfully warm and
humid environment in the
greenhouse not only
fosters the growth of
beautiful coleus, it is
a great environment for
bugs as well! We found
it impossible to grow
coleus on such a large
scale and be able to
offer our customers a
product free from
"hitchhikers". We have
developed a pest
management program that
provides the best
results possible using
organic methods
supplemented with a
minimum amount of the
safest chemicals we can
find.
I am looking for the Scaredy Cat, Dogs Be Gone, or Pee
(Piss) Off coleus. Do you sell Coleus canina?
Yes, we sell the plant commonly sold as “Coleus canina.”
While being touted as a hybrid Coleus out of Germany, it
is actually a Plectranthus, and it grows wild in Africa
and India. It has gotten a lot of publicity lately for
its ability to repel cats, dogs, rabbits, fox, and other
critters looking to urinate on or otherwise desecrate
your garden. We are happy to sell you “Coleus canina”,
but please keep in mind that as far as we know there has
not been a scientific study to gauge the
effectiveness of “Coleus canina” as an animal repellant.
Plants are sized like
our other coleus. Please
refer to the “How big
are the plants that you
sell” FAQ for more
information.
Please note: If you have had success (or failure) with
using this plant as a repellent please email us at
rosydawngardens@comcast.net and share your story.
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