I love online shopping. I buy most of my clothes and shoes through the interweb. Zero crowds, sales abound and somehow I always manage to get into in-store fights at Saks. Don’t mess with the tattooed girl!

However plants, I enjoy the nursery experience. The smell of wet soil, the crackling gravel beneath my feet, comparing one gallon containers, I love it all and frankly I’m wary about receiving delicate annuals in the mail.

Enter Annie’s Annuals. Annie’s is a plant Mecca located in Richmond, CA. They provide plants to about 60 Northern California independent retail nurseries and offer retail therapy on 2.5 acres of floral heaven. For those of us living a little south or beyond, mail order is available.

Annie’s Annuals specializes in rare, unusual annual & perennial plants, including cottage garden heirlooms & hard to find California native wildflowers. They are considering offering vegetable starts and are testing packaging.

I discovered this box under a shrub. Wonder if the mail carrier launched it over the masonry wall or scaled it?

Here’s what I got. 4 – Four plant cell packs. Lettuce – Provencal Salad Mix, Lettuce – Buttercrunch, Kale – Redbor and Pea – Cascade.

I agree with Fern of Life on the Balcony, “The plants in the box from Annie’s looked better than the plants at my local garden center!”

The soil shifted but the plants were secure and arrived in excellent condition. They were perky and healthy and rivaled my own homegrown seedlings.

If you’re into vegetable starts you won’t be disappointed with these.

More to love – From Annie’s Annuals website, “we grow most of our plants the old fashioned way – from seed – in the wind, rain and sun (no greenhouses), so your plants are already “hardened off.” All of our plants are grown in 4″ pots without the use of growth regulating hormones, commonly sprayed on almost all annuals and most perennials by large scale growers. These growth regulators slow plant growth and extend “shelf life” but can lead to disappointing results in our gardens.