We're open! Please note if an iris is marked sold out, it's no longer available for this year, no matter how much I love you. Honestly, 'sold out' means just that.
edited Fri May 18:
ACK! I'm such a bonehead. I just realized I never updated the home page with
dates for visiting. The early hot weather means we have really early bloom and it's going fast. And honestly, it isn't great - a lot of iris bloomed on short stalks this year. We're going to be around Sat May 19 from 10-3, and Sun May 20 from noon to 4, and the iris could be almost totally shot by Monday. I'm sorry I didn't put something up sooner, but with other scheduled obligations - the biggest plant show I do all year was last weekend - there weren't too many options anyway. Our annual festival is May 26; you're welcome to come, there will be great food, live music, lots of vendors with produce, baked goods, handmade crafts......and probably no iris.
The early bloom has also really upset the schedules - I'm way behind on responding to orders. I hate to make excuses, but on a farm there's other seasonal stuff to get done, and the paperwork part always gets shoved aside. I will get in touch with you, and your orders won't be delayed at all - if anything, I should be digging early this year.
Recently, I placed an order for herb flats from a company I hadn't dealt with before and was baffled by their website and ordering process. It made me realize that I need to make sure it's very clear to you, the Stoney Creek Iris customer, how our site works. I hope you'll
take a minute to read this before placing an order.
You''ll
add iris to your cart by clicking a button that you'll find on each iris' individual page. Accessing that page is easy; it's what happens when you click on the picture. The individual page has as much information about each variety as I have available to me - height, relative bloom time, lineage, etc. As long as your order is over $20.00 I'll be paying
your postage, so don't worry about hidden fees cropping up at the last minute.
When you're done you'll place your order, and you'll be asked at that time for
your mailing address. You won't enter any
information about payment at all. That will be sent to you within (I hope) 24 hours of placing your order, in an email from me. You'll have the option of
sending a check or using PayPal. If you're a new customer, you'll pay now; old customers in good standing will be allowed to wait to send payment.
That last part always causes some confusion, especially if you haven't purchased iris before. I'll be
shipping your rhizomes when they're dormant - a little earlier this year than previous years, probably from late June through the end of July. Orders are
shipped in the same order in which they were received. I have limited amounts of many varieties. I'll update the site as often as possible to indicate if something is sold out, but we're dealing with living plants here, and they often don't behave as we'd hope. Ordering early ensures that you'll get the best selection and get the ones you want. When you order, you're promising that you're going to follow through and pay for the ones you've chosen. If you don't, it costs me a lot of money, since those iris were pulled off the sale list when you chose them. Most iris growers ask for payment when the order is placed even though it can take months to ship them. The only difference here is that I let my regular customers have a little leeway.
Your iris will be dug, cleaned, trimmed and dried and shipped to you at the optimum planting time. Keep in mind that we're in the midAtlantic, and if you're in the Southwest they may arrive earlier than you'd really like. You may prefer to seek out a more local iris grower if that's the case.
I cover the cost of shipping if your order is $20 or more. If it's under that, a $5 shipping charge will be added to your order.
I'm often asked what makes Stoney Creek Iris better than our competitors. My honest answer is that every iris business I've dealt with - and that's most of them - is run by good, honest people who are selling a good product for a fair price. I'm not going to badmouth any of them and heaven knows there are enough iris varieties out there to keep us all busy. What makes us
different, though, is that our rhizomes are already acclimated to the growing conditions on the East Coast. They will not be enormous rhizomes like the ones you'd get from an iris farm in a more temperate zone, but they won't sulk when they go in the ground in a cooler climate, either. I'll stand behind the plants I send you, and I'll answer your emails if you have any questions.
Our plants are raised organically. I use alfalfa meal for an occasional fertilizer and free range chickens to control iris borers. Stoney Creek Iris is also the home of the Cool Beans CSA, which supplies organically grown vegetables and free range eggs to customers all summer. The same sustainable practices are used for all parts of the business because it all happens on just a few acres.
You're welcome to visit during bloom season. When that time gets closer I'll post some specific dates in May when the farm will be open. We're a few miles north of Harrisburg, PA. (Note: it's on a hill, and it's unfortunately not very accessible for wheelchairs or for anyone who would find walking up and down the hill to be difficult. Our lower beds kept flooding last year so most of the iris have moved to higher beds.) If those dates don't work for you, you can use the contact information at the top of the page to reach me, and we'll try to work something out. Random drop-in visits are not a good idea - although I hate to leave for any reason during bloom season, I do have to run errands sometimes, and I might not be home!
I can ship to Canada, but it's a bit complicated, since I have to get packages inspected before they're shipped, and there's a cost associated with that - if I could combine all Canadian orders for the same ship date, it will be cost effective, but if I can't, you're better off buying from a Canadian grower. If you're in Canada, please email me and we'll figure out how to work it out.
Early orders have been wonderful, surpassing previous years considerably for this point in the season. I'm so gratified to see so many returning customers. It's like hearing from old friends. This is pretty geeky, but when I travel anywhere I'm always conscious of whose gardens I'm driving by (relatively). It's pretty cool to know my iris are in 46 of the contiguous 48 states by now, and I wish you folks in South Dakota and Idaho would get on the ball......... :)
