Garden

[gardenman]

They have my two cubic foot bags of Miracle-Gro potting mix for the same price as my local Walmart and will deliver them right to my front porch at no charge thanks to Prime. Conveniently enough, my front porch is where I need them. I've got three bags coming and I may add a few more as long as the price stays the same. The Prime delivery driver won't be happy, but that's not my problem. 

On a side note, I found a neat hanging basket on Home Depot's website called the Plantopia hanging basket. It has ports on the side with sliding covers where you can plant plants through the side of the basket if desired. I've got one of them coming from Home Depot next week so that'll be interesting. I just bought the one to play with to see how it works. If it works well I may replace more of my old hanging baskets with them. It's a neat concept. I'm not sure how effective it is in the real world but it's worth a look.

[Harpa]

Yes, A is convenient! I got a few items for container gardening from them. The soil mix, though (Better Homes) we got at WM.

[CritterKeeper]

@gardenman  I have this hanging basket. Just beware: Once it is filled, it is VERY heavy. It's really nice and customizable, but when you have all the potting soil and flowers in it it is almost too heavy to lift. 

[fthunt]

YES very heavy.  Bought Phillip Watson's strawberry kit.  Worked to plant "S" in that special pot.  Immediately upon hanging on shepherd hook.......hook (metal) bent right over and pot was on the ground.

I just gave junk man that shepherd hook.  Replaced plants in my raised garden.

[ValuSkr]

Thank you, I'd have never thought of ordering potting mix from Amazon  - but, like you said, the delivery driver might not be too happy!.  The two cubic foot bags can be heavy and unwieldy, so it would be nice to have them delivered.  The Amazon / Walmart $13.47 price beats Home Depot and Lowes at $14,47/8 and it's a larger size - two cubic feet vs. 50 quarts, or 1.67 cu. ft.

I don't have Prime but it looks like Amazon will deliver free if your order is greater than $25, so two bags would be enough.   

[fthunt]

I just ordered (again this year)  6 bags total of Scott's Kty Blue grass - rye and fertilizer bags.with FREE delivery.

I'm not a prime member but get most things with free shipping.

[gardenman]

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@CritterKeeper wrote:

@gardenman  I have this hanging basket. Just beware: Once it is filled, it is VERY heavy. It's really nice and customizable, but when you have all the potting soil and flowers in it it is almost too heavy to lift. 

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I have eight 12" hanging baskets on the porch each year, and a few are the worse for wear, so I'll replace one of the more beat up ones with the new one. The weights should be pretty similar.

[gardenman]

Just a quick update. I got the first Plantopia hanging basket planter and I'm impressed by it. I've just ordered three more so the four hanging baskets on the front of the porch will all be Plantopia baskets this year. Now I have to figure out what to put in them. Each basket has six holes on the side for plants in addition to those you put in the top. 

They seem very well made, very solid. I like the self-contained saucer/water reservoir. I've had planters you plant in the side before but most were a bit clunky and didn't work all that well. These look pretty neat. I like that I don't have to stuff a plant through a small hole (the big issue with earlier ones I had.) You just pop out the side panel, lay the plant in place, and snap the panel back into place. Fast, simple, and easy. The panels seem nice and solid. 

I'm not sure why they're not more widely available. The only retailer I've found is Home Depot. Amazon apparently had them in the past, but not any longer. Park Seed also sold them in the past but no longer. Interesting. Is there a flaw in them I've yet to discover? (Does the plastic get brittle in sunlight?) I'll find out over the course of the summer. For now, they seem like the perfect hanging basket for me. They'll obviously need a bit more water since you've got more plants in the same pot, but that's not a huge issue for me as I've automated the watering for my baskets with drip irrigation into each pot.

The hanging chains they include could be an issue. They're a very bright chrome-type look. They also just slot into the baskets which isn't the most secure connection. The chrome finish could wear off or corrode. I use a braided stainless steel cable for my hanging baskets anyway, so that's not an issue for me. The first one is already cabled up and is ready to be planted when the weather warms. The other three are coming next week. 

[gardenman]

Amazon is shipping the two cubic foot bags of potting mix via UPS. That's interesting. Each one is shipping separately. I'm thinking they're not making a lot of profit using UPS. Some things ship directly from the manufacturer so maybe Miracle-Gro is the shipper? I'll have to see. They're scheduled for delivery by Thursday, but UPS stuff tends to come earlier. The two cubic foot bags tend to weigh around forty-ish pounds if dry and more if damp. I would imagine UPS shipping costs for something in the 40 lb range would eat into the $14+ price pretty quickly. I was expecting Amazon to drop it off themselves. That would seem more economical.

[gardenman]

Two of the bags of potting mix are now leaving Hodgkins, Illinois for here and will be here Tuesday, but the third one is still awaiting pickup. They're listed as weighing 44 pounds each which is kind of heavy. In an interesting twist, Amazon has refunded me $28.72 for some as yet unknown reason, it's listed as a "return" on my bank statement. That's pretty much what I paid for two of the bags of potting mix. I ordered three and two are supposedly on their way here, so why would they be refunding $28.72? I haven't returned anything.

Did someone figure out how much money they're losing by shipping 44-pound bags of potting mix and nix the sale? Or part of it anyway. I don't know. I'll find out on Tuesday if I don't hear anything from Amazon before then. There's nothing unusual listed on my Amazon orders page or account page so it's kind of a mystery what's going on. Amazon is typically very good at flooding me with information but they've pretty much told me nothing so far. The "return" credit popped up yesterday though for something. Presumably two bags of the potting mix, but who knows? 

If I can't get it through Amazon I'll either load up at Walmart or Tractor Supply Co instead. I've got three tracking numbers though and two of them are reportedly en route, so who knows what's going on?