This is our third article in a Quick Digs series about preparing Salvia gardens for spring. The second article talked, in part, about drafting a wish list of Salvias (sages) and companion plants that you want for special projects or to fill empty spots in flowerbeds.

Maintaining a list of plants you want to purchase from an online nursery can be awkward if you have to rely on the temporary list in a digital "shopping cart." For example, at Flowers by the Sea, our shopping cart will only retain your choices for three days. That's because as soon as you log in to your registered account and put a plant in your shopping cart, it's no longer available to other customers. If we allow plants to stay in carts overlong, they become overgrown and unsaleable. Then they end up in our compost heap.  

To solve this record-keeping problem and avoid waste, we offer our FBTS Wish List feature. You can access it when logged in and create multiple lists of plants you need for your garden or want to purchase for friends and family. It's easy to add to or delete from your lists. Just click on the tiny heart button on a plant description page, which is located below the price and by the quantity button. When the Wish List box pops up, it asks you to identify the name of the list you want to access or to create and name a new list. For each list, you indicate whether to keep it private or share it with others.

An FBTS Wish List can function as  a gift registry where friends and family who also have accounts with us can purchase plants you want. Sometimes it's difficult to know what to give for a birthday, holiday or other special day. Conversely, it also can be awkward to tell folks what kinds of gifts you would like to receive. Registries remove the guesswork while also allowing gift givers to surprise recipients. 

Registration and Login Form

If you don't yet have an FBTS account, the first step in shopping here and creating wish lists is to register through our secure ecommerce connection. By "secure," we mean that no one but you and FBTS can access your information.

The registration process is speedy. We ask you to provide the following information:

• Email address
• First and last name, and
• Phone number
• Choose a password comprised of seven letters and numbers that don't include your username.

Then you create a password of at least seven letters and numbers that doesn't include your user name, which is your email address. Afterward, you receive an email asking for confirmation of registration. Once you have confirmed, you are ready to shop in our catalog or create a wish list containing plants you want.

Plant Selection

We don't print a catalog. Instead, our catalog is online -- a seamless part of our website, which offers a number of ways to obtain plant descriptions, such as:

• Typing the name of a favorite Salvia in the Search Window at the top of every page
• Accessing our Salvia Finder Tool to discover galleries of plants that meet your local growing conditions
• Viewing queues of plants organized by specific needs (such as color) in the green Category Menu at the top of every page or
• Considering the "bestsellers" and "new arrivals" lists on our homepage.

When you open a plant-description page, carefully read all the information and click on the gray Cultural Icons button just above the Details text at the bottom of the page. This helps you to make sure the plant fits your local growing conditions and is the right color, form and size for your garden.

Questions?

Although our days are full of work in our fields and greenhouses, we are always near a telephone or computer. At Flowers by the Sea, we pride ourselves on excellent customer service as well as quality plants and shipping. So don't hesitate to contact us with your questions.

By Alicia Rudnicki, FBTS Staff Writer