The Newest Additions to Our 2024 Catalog
Clockwise beginning at upper right:
Gervase Amaryllis: Clusters of large 7-8” wide, trumpet shaped, light rose pink to white flowers are heavily overlaid with red and deep fuchsia veining with random streaks of contrasting deep red. Each flower may be unique even from those in the same cluster. Gervase Amaryllis is a newer and quite popular cultivar that makes an easy, reliable, and rewarding spring to early summer flowering bulb that readily multiplies. It can also be forced for winter flowering as a container plant.
Hairy Sunflower, Helianthus hirsutus: 2-3” wide sunflowers with golden yellow to primrose yellow ray petals and yellow disc flowers are produced in summer to fall singly and in few-flowered clusters atop short sturdy stems attracting bees, butterflies, and other garden beneficials. This is one of the smaller growing Sunflower species whose sturdy stems are adorned with opposite, lanceolate, rough feeling, deep green foliage and the leaf pairs sit at 90o to those above or below. In its native habitat, this is a 2-4’ high, rhizomatous, colonizing, herbaceous, winter deciduous perennial that is typically found locally in dryish, sandy to loamy, well-drained soils in the Pineywoods but is found throughout much of the central and eastern US into Canada and northern Mexico. In rich fertile soils it is reported to grow as high as 5-7’ and it may be at its best where it can be allowed to naturalize as in meadows, prairies, forest edges, and roadside plantings.
Halfway to Arkansas Blue Star or Amsonia: Earned 4 out of 4 stars in trials at Chicago Botanic Gardens! Dome shaped clusters, up to 5” are wide, are composed of deep blue pointed buds that open to pale blue starry flowers and are produced in mid to late spring attracting butterflies, larger bees, hummingbirds, and hummingbird moths. Halfway to Arkansas Blue Star, an Intrinsic Perennials selection, is a clump forming, taprooted, herbaceous, native perennial with a dense bushy, almost neatly formal habit once mature and is cloaked in deep green, fine textured, narrow foliage that changes to gold tinged with purple in autumn. Amsonias or Blue Stars are tough, easy, heat and humidity loving, deer and rabbit resistant, and tolerate low fertility soils. Grows to 3-4’H x 4-5’W at maturity. Image courtesy of Intrinsic Perennials, all rights reserved.
Caesar’s Brother Siberian Iris: Nearly an heirloom but this multi-award winning Iris is still highly popular today! The flowers are composed of deep purple falls accented by deep blue veining and contrasting white signals and are topped by deep purple standards with flowers held on sturdy 36-40” high stems in late spring. The deep green narrow foliage provides grass-like motion in the garden even when the plants are not in flower. Provide Siberian Iris with an average moist to consistently moist, moderately fertile soil and they can be planted near ponds, streams, and bog gardens as well as in average moist garden and landscape settings. They generally keep the best looking foliage where they have reliable access to moisture during the growing season. Image courtesy of Walter’s Gardens, Inc., all rights reserved.
Guava Lava Hummingbird Mint, Agastache x ‘Guava Lava’ PPAF: Dense spikes of tubular coral orange flowers emerge from long lasting showy deep mauve pink colored calyxes. The flowers are produced basically from late spring to fall atop the fruitily fragrant grayish green foliage. Guava Lava Hummingbird Mint or Agastache was selected for its dense habit as well as for its ability to provide a long season of color as a container plant or in the garden and landscape. The flowers attract hummingbirds and larger butterflies. Provide a full to mostly sunny location in a well-drained sandy soil for optimum vigor and flowering as well as the plant’s longevity. Image courtesy of Walter’s Gardens, Inc., all rights reserved.
Purple Flame Blue Flag Iris: The show begins in early spring as the deep purple fans of foliage emerge from the ground eventually maturing to green and it crescendos in late spring to early summer with the plants producing deep purple, 24-30” high stems that are adorned with elegant purple, white, and yellow flowers. Purple Flame Blue Flag, a unique selection of the native Iris versicolor, was selected in 2020 as part of the American Horticulture Society’s Mt. Cuba Collection™ after literally decades of garden trials. This is a slowly spreading, clump-forming, rhizomatous, herbaceous, winter deciduous perennial that is a reliable performer under average moisture conditions, although it may be at its best in moist to wet to submerged sites like rain gardens, bogs, and near the edge of ponds and other water features. Provide a full sun to partly shaded site in a fertile soil for optimum growth and vigor. Deer resistant, a good cut flower, and requires almost no maintenance. Images courtesy of Mt. Cuba Center, all rights reserved.
Copper Iris, Iris fulva: Coppery colored falls and standards are overlaid with darker colored veining and lighten toward their bases and are produced in early to midsesaon on sturdy 18-24” high stalks. The red toned flowers are hummingbird pollinated where most other species of the Louisiana Iris group are pollinated by larger bees. This Iris species is smaller in all regards to most Louisiana Iris species and cultivars in that it produces 3-4” wide flowers with drooping petals, the rhizomes are consistently in the 3/4” diameter range, the foliage is typically less than 1” wide, and the plants top out at around 18-24” high. The Copper Iris is most commonly found in the southern half of the Mississippi River basin and along the Louisiana portion of the Red River in consistently wet to moist areas but not submerged. It has been used widely to develop red flowering crosses and is a parent of Nelson’s Louisiana Iris, a.k.a. the Abbeyville Red Iris.
Welcome to Almost Eden
At Almost Eden we specialize in beautiful, unusual and hard to find plants including a large variety of native plants. Our stock encompasses over 1000 varieties/species, spanning 100 different plant families for your home and garden. Our plants are live, growing and well-rooted plants often flowering or large enough to begin flowering when they are shipped with the soil and container intact. We have an excellent selection of plants for pollinators including plants for hummingbird gardens, butterfly gardens, plants that attract a variety of native bees as well as honey bees and even plants for hummingbird moths. We offer unusual and hard to find tropicals like the old fashioned types of free flowering Chinese Hibiscus, the intensely fragrant Night Blooming Jasmine, the true Jasmines and Night Blooming Cereus, as well as a variety of fragrant Angel's Trumpets and Epiphyllums (Orchid Cacti). Each year we add more and more perennials from the tried and true heirlooms, to the easy to grow natives to some of the hottest new varieties out there! We grow a variety of shrubs including a large selection of Camellias as well as deciduous Azaleas, Hydrangeas, Butterfly Bushes and many more unusual and hard to find varieties. Vines include a selection of beautiful and intriguing Passion Flowers, Pipevines, Firecracker Vines, Coral Vines in 3 colors, Coral Honeysuckles, Climbing Roses and many more. Trees include many native species but our Crybaby Trees may be the most popular item on that list! John has a huge collection of figs and each year he works diligently to offer ever more varieties so check back often to see what's available. You can also sign up for our periodic (3-5 times per year normally) newsletter here. We will not send you SPAM nor share, sell, or otherwise distribute your personal information.
Logging in to Your Almost Eden Account
We have upgraded our website's security for our customer accounts to now include a password in order be able to access your account information. Your user ID is now your email address and it is important to note that it is case sensitive. Returning customers may need to use the reset password link on the login form and our system will then send you a time-sensitive email with a link where you can set up your new password or reset a forgotten password. The passwords are encrypted in our database and so we are unable to provide you with your password but we can reset it on our end if you need help with it. Please feel free to contact us if you need any assistance. Thank you again for your business and we apologize for any inconvenience.
You are more than welcome to check out without setting up a customer account and password as always. Setting up an account with us will allow you to view current and previous orders and update your address or other contact information. Either way, please add “@almostedenplants.com” to your safe senders list or whitelist so that our emails do not end up in your SPAM folder.
Planting and Growing Guides
You've got your new plants so now what do you do with them? We have a selection of Growing Guides specific to Planting New Container Grown Plants in the Garden and Landscape, Uppotting and Repotting Container Grown Plants - includes soil selection, what yellow or brown foliage and green soil indicate, proper watering techniques for containers, as well as individual growing guides specific to various plant types including: Azaleas, Cactus and Succulents, Camellias, Gardenias, Honeysuckles, Hardy or Perennial Hibiscus, Night Blooming Cereus and Epiphyllums, Sambac Jasmines, and more. You can find our Growing Guides page from any page on our website. These are designed for beginning gardeners but have pearls of wisdom that even advanced gardeners may find useful. It is our sincere hope that these guides will help to get your plants growing and thriving for season after season!
Out of Stock Products
The plants that we currently have listed in our online catalog are all plants that we intend to offer in the 2024 season. There may be a few rare exceptions that remain on here for information purposes but we are working toward making those available in the coming seasons. To be notified, when an out of stock product becomes available again, go to the plant's individual product page by clicking the "Details & Growing Info" link OR by clicking on the plant's image in our online catalog. Just click the 'Email me when ready' link below the 'Out of Stock' notice and our system will send you a one-time automatic email letting you know the product is available. You do need to be registered and must be signed in to our website for this feature to work. This action does not add you to any other mailing lists. We do not share, sell or otherwise give out our customer's information nor will we send you loads of SPAM. If you are interested you are welcome to sign up to receive our periodic newsletter by clicking here.
Shipping
We understand what healthy quality plants should look like and our specially designed packaging system will get them from our greenhouse to your doorstep looking as though they were just plucked from the nursery. We ensure that your plants are secured safely in their soil and container. Our specially designed shipping and packaging system will get your plants to you quickly, carefully and easily via the FedEx and USPS to anywhere in the US. We will send an email stating when your order will ship and confirming the order information for verification. Please be sure to check your Spam or Junk mail if you don't hear from us within a day or two from when you place your order. Orders are normally shipped as early as possible each week to ensure that your plants do not spend the weekend unneccessarily in a warehouse. Be sure to get your order and payment in by Wednesday at 11:59PM CST, for it to ship out the following Monday. See our Shipping page for more details.
Tracking Your Shipment: We have upgraded our packaging system so that your shipping address is verified with FedEx or USPS prior to shipping and each package is automatically assigned a tracking number. The instant we print the shipping label for your package you are immediately sent an email that includes your tracking number and a link to the FedEx website (for orders shipped within the lower 48 states or Shipping Zones 1-8) or the the USPS website (for all other shipping areas or Shipping Zone 9) where you can track your package until it arrives safely at your doorstep. If you made the order while logged into our system as a registered customer, you will also have the ability to check the status of your order and get your tracking information from the My Account or Account Management & Customer Service area. Please note that your tracking email will originate from either FedEx.com, @fedex.com, or USPS.com, @usps.com, so please add the appropriate domain(s) to your email whitelist to ensure you receive status updates and tracking information about your order.
Note As of 9/1/2023: Unfortunately due to higher shipping fees and material costs we have had to update our shipping charges. Shipping charges are now zip code-zone based in combination with the number of plant units in your order: plants in 2.25-4.5 inch pots count as 1 unit each and quart sized pots are counted as 2 units each due to their higher weight and size. In an effort to economize costs, the shipping charges are now the same for 1-4 plant units and are then increased in multiples of 4 units each. In other words, assuming all pots sizes in the order are 2.25, 3.5, or 4.5 inch pots, it costs as much to ship 1 plant as it does for 4 plants, and then it costs the same to ship 5 plants as it does 8 plants. By filling the box out the shipping cost per plant will be the most economical.
You can find your shipping cost by clicking the Calculate shipping cost link in the minicart for users on a PC or Mac and from the View Cart page on mobile platforms. Registered customers who are logged into the website will automatically have their shipping costs updated while they shop. Enter your zip code here to find your FedEx/USPS shipping zone, total plant units, and shipping cost.
Our Customer Service Hours and Onsite Visits
Please enjoy your stroll through our online catalog and if at anytime you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact us. Our customer service phone hours are from about 8AM-5PM CST daily. Please Note: We do not offer onsite sales and can only offer curbside pickup if arrangements have been made with our staff. Feel free to call us anytime during normal hours and John will do his best to take your call.
Our nursery and gardens are only open to visitors who have a pre-scheduled visit set up. The following contact information is clickable:
( 337 ) 375 - 2114
1240 Smith Rd
Merryville, LA 70653
We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover
Rating Almost Eden's Products and Services
Please feel free to rate any of the plants that you might have experience with as this can provide useful and insightful information for your fellow gardeners. We do review the reviews and so it may take time for your review to appear on our website.
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