Gardens Home

Sometimes it’s hard to tell if we’re a coffee shop tucked inside a garden shop, or a garden shop grafted onto a coffee shop, but whichever way you look at us we’ve been in the gardening business a long, long, time.

We carry a full range of bedding plants, including both flowers and vegetables in starts and seeds, plus all organic soils, fertilizers, and all the garden tools and other gear you might need.

And of course, answers to all your gardening questions. For example…

“When is average date of last frost?”

The average date of last frost in Corvallis is April 20th, but about 20 percent of the time it’s as late as May 4th. But fear not, you can plant many, many things before then. Heck, you can plant Pansies and Primrose in January around here and they’ll actually bloom and even grow slowly. Then once we get into the middle of March we start getting a whole host of cool tolerant flowers like Marigolds, Snapdragons and Geraniums. Not to mention all the leafy green veggies.

“When should I plant my tomatoes and other warm weather veggies?”

Tomatoes don’t do well until the temperature at night stays above 50 degrees. Which generally means the middle of May. Lots of people plant earlier than that, and some of them are just optimists, but others use any number of easy tricks to protect their small tomato plants on cold nights. It can be as easy as dropping a cardboard box over your tomato overnight!

“How often do I have to water my pots?”

Some plants have special needs, but for the most part you want to let the soil in a pot dry out slightly before watering it again. There are two quick ways to gauge this. First, stick your finger in the soil. If the soil is cool and just slightly damp under the surface, it’s time to water again. Second, if you have a light weight pot just pick it up – a pot ready to be watered weighs MUCH less than a well watered pot. You’ll quickly learn to tell by the “heft” of the pot when you lift it.

Bonus tip: For most plants you cannot put too much water on the plant, but you can kill it by not letting it dry out enough between waterings. Water the pot until water drains out the bottom, then let it dry out.

Bonus bonus tip: Most hanging flower baskets have a small water reservoir inside the pot where you can’t see it, so they’ll likely need less frequent watering than other pots that size. But in hot weather they’ll still need watering once a day.

“What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”

I don’t have the answer to that question, but you get more bonus points if you understood the movie reference.

That aside, we can help with nearly any question about gardening. And for the record, my name is Tim. Just like in the movie. Really.