Berry early delivery? Strawberry advice!!

[Yulan]

This morning after the kids all got on the bus I went out to grab my newspaper, I find two boxes!?! Since it is before 7:30 I doubt they were delivered this morning and yesterday was Sunday. {confusion} I am certain I didn't see them yesterday. I brought them in, one was my two new blueberry bushes, the other my strawberries! The strawberries look wilted and frozen any luck these 25 everbearing plants will be able to be saved? If so what do I do outside is to cold and I didn't plan on them being here before i was planting??

 

[Ridgerunner]

Are they bare root or potted? Have they broken dormancy?

Whether they are bare root or potted, them drying out is a big risk but bare root are obviously more at risk. You want the roots to stay damp but not so wet they rot. If you can't get them in the ground immediately, which sounds like you can't, pot them up.

Freezing is not a problem as long as they have not broken dormancy but if they have broken dormancy they need to grow and store energy before they go dormant again. When you say they have wilted that makes me think they have broken dormancy. The best thing I can think of is to pot them up and try to keep them alive until you can move them outside.

If they have not broken dormancy protect the roots from drying out and store them someplace pretty cool.

Can you online track them? That may give you a clue as to what happened. In the absence of any evidence I'll postulate a theory and let you blow holes in it. They were mis-delivered to a neighbor who dropped them off at your place without notifying you. Hence the mysterious Monday morning delivery. A responsible nursery should have shipped them early enough so they arrived before the weekend to keep them from drying out.

I recently got some fig trees from Stark Bros. They arrived fine and all that. They said they would send me an e-mail when the trees were shipped. That e-mail was sent just a couple of hours before the plants were delivered. If I were not retired and happened to be home to receive them I could have been a bit upset, especially if my dog had gotten into the packages. I have one that will do that. I've dealt with Stark before and they have always been very responsible. After a big order several years back (around 20 trees) they called me a year later to see how the trees were doing and sent replacements for the two trees that had died, plus a free bonus peach tree. I hate to say anything bad about Stark after that but I was a little disappointed that e-mail wasn't sent a day or two before.

 

[Nyboy]

Wow @Ridgerunner you are very clever, I often get mail for a neighbor and just walk over and put it in their mailbox

 

[Yulan]

They are bare root and yes they have broken dormancy and yes it was a neighbor they got delivered to her place by ups, a mile or so down the road she thought that she would stick them in her car drop them off on her way to work she forgot they spent two days in her car and she dropped them off early this morning on her way home (she works nights) I emailed the person I got them from (eBay)they said that it was not their fault (I must agree) and that there was nothing they could do for me... The leaves are black, I did put them in water I am unsure what to do?

 

[Yulan]

I don't want to throw them away...

 

[Smart Red]

Try contacting UPS. They might have a liability for mis-delivery that would allow you to at least recoup your costs.

It is the crown and roots that are important here, not the leaves. Red's Rules # 2 states that given close to what they need, plants will do their part and try to survive. If your weekend was a warm as ours, they may have cooked in a hot car, but if there is still a trace of viability, the plants will recover.

Pot 'em!

 

[Yulan]

Ok I am going to pot them and tell them to grow!

 

[Smart Red]

Ok I am going to pot them and tell them to grow!

ASK! And say, please. Any and all prayers for further assistance would be welcome.

 

[Yulan]

I will plant them lovingly ask them to nicely grow and pray for them to survive and be bountiful.

 

[so lucky]

I don't know much about blueberries, but I have found that strawberries are amazingly sturdy. Unless the crown is black and mushy, I'm betting they will survive.