Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

FREE BOOK GIVEAWAY – New Release!

We are giving away a signed copy of the brand new book – The Nonstop Garden by Perennial Diva Stephanie Cohen & Jennifer Benner.  This step by step guide includes easy design strategies along with time saving garden advice from seasoned gardeners.  We’ll choose a lucky winner every month until we run out of books.

HOW TO WIN

FACEBOOK Go to our Facebook Fan page – www.facebook.com/greatgardenplants

Type the following in the comment box:

I WANT TO WIN THE NONSTOP GARDEN BOOK

We’ll choose a lucky winner every month – until we run out of books!

TWITTER  – you can also tweet us

Follow us on Twitter – www.twitter.com/grtgardenplants

#grtgardenplants

Type the following:

@grtgardenplants – I WANT TO WIN THE NONSTOP GARDEN BOOK

We’ll watch for your message and twitter you if you won.

Register to Win Today!

Great Garden Plants is offering a $250.00 Garden Giveaway for spring 2010. There will be a monthly drawing in April, May & June 2010 for $250.00 in garden plants (you get to choose) from www.greatgardenplants.com.  You get three chances to win and make your garden beautiful!

How To Enter

To be eligible you must register for the Great Garden Plants Emails Newsletter Club. If you are already a Email Newsletter Subscriber your name is automatically entered into our Monthly Drawing. No purchase is required!  If you are a winner – you can select your own plants to beautify your garden.  CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

The Rules

The rules are simple.  It’s a random drawing. You must be a e-newsletter subscribing to win. One winner is announced for each month of April, May, June 2010. Winners are notified on May 1, June 1 and July 1, 2010.

Open to US residents within the 48 contiguous states.  Not redeemable for cash

Click here to enter and a chance to win!

Gaillardia Fanfare

Good gardening practices are sometimes difficult for the gardener.  Last summer I planted a variety of Gaillardia.  Now, I’ve learned from working with Mary and Chris, that the way to get the best results from your plants takes patience.  You should start by  preparing the ground, mix in some organic matter (either peat moss or compost) dig a big hole add some Osmocote fertilizer and make sure the plants are well watered.  If you want to achieve quicker branching and healthier plants you should also keep them trimmed.  That is the part that is tough for me.  I want the flowers!

Burgundy Gaillardia keeps going on for weeks even in the worst heat!

Well, last summer I planted my Gaillardia in July, after we bought our house, and I lectured myself into trimming the plants.  While it hurt me to trim off new buds and keep the plants fairly short (about 8-10 inches tall) I knew that by doing so the Gaillardia would branch out and I would have many more beautiful red and yellow blooms next summer and for many summers to come.  And it worked.  By the end of September each of my plants had about 6-9 blooms at a time.   I am not a patient person when it comes to flowers or my husband putting dishes in the dishwasher, but this was definitely worth the wait.  I can’t wait to see them this summer!

Drought Tolerant Gaillardia blooms for 5+ months!

My name is Heidi Beck.  I’ve been working at Great Garden Plants since October of 2008.

About me

I grew up in the Ann Arbor, MI area.  In 2003 I was ready for a change of scenery and I moved to Grand Haven, MI.  I quickly joined the Grand Haven Area Jaycees.  We are a community service organization and are very active in our community.  Through the Jaycees I met my husband, Chris (Beck not Chris Hansen).  We were married in August of 2006.  Our daughter Megan will celebrate her first birthday this Wednesday.  How did the year go so quickly?

As a single person I chose to live in a condo.  It was great to have someone else mow the lawn and shovel the walk.  But, after getting married we decided we’d like a house to raise a family.  Last July, we moved into our new home.  I’m so excited that now I will get to plant a lot of the flowers I love from our website.  The last homeowners preferred green shrubs.  The good news is this gives me the opportunity to create the garden the way I want it.

I know a lot about our plants and shrubs, but I’m a beginning gardener.  I have the “book smarts,” now I just need the weather to warm up so I can start digging : )

My Grandfather had a green thumb.  Each summer the garden was his passion.  And each winter he went a little stir-crazy until it was warm out.  He had a wide variety of flowers, fruit trees and a massive vegetable garden.  Every time we would visit we would leave with a minimum of 2-3 brown paper bags full of vegetables.  His favorite flowers were roses and every time I see them I think of my Grandfather. Hopefully, I inherited some of that skill.

I love working at Great Garden Plants.  We have a lot of fun and I love learning all I can from Mary and Chris.  They have so much information about so many plants – it amazes me.  I will be taking you with me on my journey to change my yard from green to color.

Your Friend in Gardening,

Heidi

Welcome to Great Garden Plants blog

Mary & Chris with their Jumbo Size Perennials at Garden Writers Symposium

After graduating from college in 1977 with a political science degree, I worked in retail management for awhile before finding myself back on home turf and working at my family wholesale perennial business, Walters Gardens, Inc.  I started packing plants and worked a few months in a tissue culture lab wanting to know what made this business tick and learning as much as I could about perennials. I even spent year study botany and organizing a wholesale catalog – thus began my horticultural & marketing career.

Mary & long time assistant Laurel Hall - Race for the Cure to fight Breast Cancer

I feel grateful to have had such a learning opportunity, especially gleaning  business & plant info from my father.   I was blessed with a great assistant, Laurel Hall who is a breast cancer survivor.  The two of us helped to develop programs where proceeds when to Susan G Koeman Foundation to help fight breast cancer. 

Joseph Campbell  once  said  “We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”  I found myself meeting up with my business partner Chris at a Trade Show in 2006 and starting Great Garden Plants in 2007.  It’s been truly an amazing & growing experience.  One of the things Chris & I were determined to do was to make gardeners happy by providing  a quality size  plant that they would enjoy.

When Chris & I started talking about a blog – we asked ourselves, what are we going to be blogging about?

As a gardener for over 25 years, I plan to share a lot of my successes and failures that will help you become a better gardener. I’ve planted many plants, killed not as many, moved more than I originally planted,  gave a lot of plants away, and surprised neighbors with various theme gardens (such as a laundry room theme).  I’m not very good at training my wanna-be gardener puppy, Chloe (a goldendoodle) who is determined to dig  holes in all the wrong places. 

I’m not a great writer, not even a good one – but I write as I see & feel it – not using some borrowed copy off the internet.  

As a horticultural photographer, you’ll see see a host of garden photos that I hope will inspire,  kindle an idea, or just make you smile.

Please join us on our gardening  adventure. We look forward to your comments!

Here’s to the glorious world of gardening!

Mary