Review: Martha Stewart Living Seeds/Bulbs

Martha Stewart Living Seeds/Bulbs

Rating: 8.5/10 (Bulbs) 3/10 (Seeds)
Price: $1.99 - $50.00

I've never tried any of Martha's plant products. She has an attractive selection of dormant bulbs and bare roots, sold in well designed packages, beautifully marketed and priced accordingly. She offers a limited variety of products, only sold at Home Depot in Canada and the USA. You can buy them in store or order online, and purchases over $45.00 include free shipping.

What I always say about free shipping is always spend what you need to get it. Why buy $30.00 worth or product and pay another $30.00 for shipping, it's like paying 2x over for your items and you might as well not shop online. If free shipping is $75.00 and up plan to spend $75.50 at that online nursery.

Martha's line is essentially picking the plants that are well designed for you, mixing specific colors and varieties for that modern magazine look. The most common examples would be lime green, white and pink tulips all in one bag, plant at random. No everyone likes to garden like that, so if you don't like colour mixes and pre-planned grab bags, her products aren't for you.

Blue Border Assortment
by Martha Stewart Living ($42.95 - 180 bulbs)

Hyacinth China Pink & Tulip Couleur Cardinal
by Martha Stewart Living ($26.88 - 48 bulbs)

She has many other assortments and plain packs of bulbs at which seem to be, very reasonable prices. The average price of her bulb packs is $25.00 for 15 - 35 bulbs depending on the species.

Examples of tulips available by Martha Stewart Living

She also has a limited number of seeds, they are a decent price online, but I've seen them be more expensive in store. There is nothing special about her seeds, and I might buy them on clearence or with a discount, they just don't seem that special. Her choices are basic heirloom and "pretty" no flowers, just veggies and herbs, water melon and cantaloupe.

Martha Stewart's Seed Collection 

She has other bulbs, non-spring bulbs like two varieties of lily, elephant ear, astillbe, peacock lilies, peonies and cana bulbs. They are fairly decent prices and I would consider buying them in store when the discounts roll around at the end of the season, not because I don't think they are worth the price they show now, I just think I'll save a lot by waiting and being a cheapo that I am. Clearance prices can show you how much the store actually bought them for, because they still think they can make profit from 80% off a regular price, home depot is an excellent discounter. For example one bag of 48 tulip bulbs is $30.00, thats 62 cents a bulb. When the bag of bulbs gets discounted 75% off, the price drops to $8.00, that's only 16 cents a bulb, wowza.

Other bulbs available. 

My final thoughts are, well done Martha Stewart Living plants, your seeds suck but your bulbs aren't that bad. Buy her product in your local Home Depot store and wait for the clearance prices at the end of  spring, yes, you may not have the best selection, but there should be some nice tulips to pick over, and they'll discount her other non-spring bulbs because box stores don't know the difference. I know I'll be checking out her products!

Garden Centre Recon I

Now that I've had my smart phone for a while, it's the perfect time to use it like and garden spy and record what I've found at local garden shops and centres. Take a look at my late April, early May finds!

 The "Ontario Natives" plant stand at Zehrs in Guelph.

I saw this stand outside of Zehrs one day and I absolutely love this! For $3.99 you can have a small biodegradable Ontario native plant. They are very small, but the pricing is just right, garden centres pump up the prices of native plants because "they can" and they can be hard to propagate, not to mention the fines for removing some native plants. In this selection they have a great mix of forest and meadow dwelling natives; white, yellow, light pink and red trillium. Violets, blood root, ferns, cone flowers, foam flowers, false solomon's seal, and jack-in-the-pulpit. Unfortunately I waited too long to see if it would reduce, and when I returned they had some serious slim pickings left. The nicest looking plants left was a foam flower with lots of new growth (very important) and flowers. I took it home and popped it in a nice space in my shade garden.

I also took some photos of the rest of the President's Choice plant stock.

What I think is nice about this brand and stock is that they like to carry the "fads" of the garden world, they bring the special garden centre selects and only carry them. I like this because it brings really interesting plants to the eyes of beginner gardeners and lets people try something new. I don't like this because it means they can and will inflate the prices. They prices are not terrible, but they certainly aren't deals. I'll check back at the end of June for the clearance sale. 

Costco Bags of Bulbs. Great Prices, great quality, looks like a nice selection.

I bought a bag of giant lilies and a Dahlia mix, about 15 bulbs in each bag, each bag $12.99.

I found these beauties at Home Depot. Home Depot tends to have the best deals. Creeping Speedwell "Goldwell" and Sedum "Autumn Charm".