Among my first choices in fruit plants is Burnt Ridge Nursery. I've ordered from them for the past 5 years and I've only had problems with 2 plants (out of dozens and dozens of plants).

Best of all, I emailed about those 2 plants and the company gave me a choice, prompt refund or a new plant.

Besides their catalog is way better than Gardener's Choice.

~Chills

Here is a link that might be useful: BRN

Check out the list of nurseries & suppliers at the NAFEX website - many have links to their websites. The NAFEX website is currently under revision/update, so it may not be as complete as we'd like, but those that are listed are reputable.

Here is a link that might be useful: NAFEX Nurseries & Suppliers list

jadecomputergal-

IÂm sorry to hear about your situation. Hopefully you can get your money back with the credit card.

ItÂs a little hard for us to suggest nurseries without knowing where you live, and what type of plants youÂre looking for. Although itÂs mail order, I still try to order closer to home if possible less time in shipping, etc. Also, what specific types of plants are you looking for? For example, for just general fruit plants, you could start with http://www.raintreenursery.com/ (in WA), or if you are looking for apples, http://www.acnursery.com/ (in NY), or for berries, http://www.noursefarms.com/ (in MA)

Your best friend in this quest should be the DaveÂs Garden Watchdog. An easy way to check on the nursery you are interested in is simply go to Google and type the word "scoop", and then the nursery name: "Scoop Gardener's Choice" and you will see the deplorable results. Or, "Scoop Nourse Farms", and you will see their perfect results.

Hope this helpsÂ
-Glenn

I ordered from Nourse farms this year and was very happy with my raspberries. I ordered five yellow raspberries and 4 of the five are growing and doing well. The fifth hasn't done anything yet but I've decided I don't actually want it as it is a bit too close to the walkway. All of the plants were large for bareroots.

Yep. Nourse Farms is first rate. I've ordered from them 3 times now... about 40 or so raspberry BR plants.
-G

I've ordered once or twice from Bay Laurel Nurseries in Atascadero, CA and never had any issues -- I *think* they'll only ship rootstocks though but I may be wrong.. I've also visited their store and brought home plants that way as well.. Very professional,etc.. They put out a catalog late in the year (October/November?) and take orders but the orders won't ship until Jan/Feb give or take.. All of their trees have been very good growers, etc..

Here is a link that might be useful: Bay Laurel Nursery

In addition to using Garden Watchdog ( http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/ ), mentioned above, to check up on sources, you can use Plant Scout ( http://davesgarden.com/products/ps/ ) to help you locate suppliers for particular plants. These two resources can also work together. Plant Source has Garden Watchdog links.

Here is a link that might be useful: Plant Source

Garden Watchdog can often be a little off the mark.

For example, House of Wesley has a terrible rating. I have ordered from House of Wesley for 20+ years and the ONLY problem that I have EVER had from them is one year, 2 strawberry plants out of 100+ never leafed out. They sent replacements that fall. Like any nursery, it is the customer's responsibility to order early, like February or before, in order to receive the plants in a timely manner before it gets too hot to ship plants safely to the customer's home. The plants from them arrive in bare root dormant condition and appear like brown sticks. Of course they do, they are dormant. Plant them in a pot in the shade, keep well watered and they should break dormancy within a couple months. I've seen it many times over, from various nurseries. People do not give their plants enough time to break dormancy. They stop watering them and then complain that the the plants died. Remember that these plants are dug up in the fall. After they are planted in the spring, they have a whole winter's worth of roots to grow before putting out leaves. Some plants, such as apples and other rose relatives, can grow roots in days, while others, such a Paulownia can take over 2 months.

I have also ordered plants from nurseries that get great ratings on Garden Watchdog with dismal results. If in pots, the dirt may be infested with bugs, or if bare root dormant trees, absolutely no packing material to keep the roots moist. Etc. Etc.

Sorry about rambling, but Garden Watchdog needs to be taken with a large grain of salt.

Any type or research should be backed up. Very few sources of information are without flaw. But, Garden Watchdog is BY FAR the best single source of information I am aware of when it comes to rating sources for plants. I would trust it WAY MORE than I would some individual who I don't know and who has had only limited experience compared to (in some cases) hundreds of customers over many years.

Garden Watchdog's usefulness can also be enhanced with proper use. It's not a bad idea to actually read all (or at least some) of the reviews. Simply going by the numbers isn't quite as informative. Also, noting how many reviews each reviewer has submitted can sometimes shed more light. Finally, a company with only one or two reviews (not common) may be harder to evaluate than those with many entries. If a company has more than say 20 reviews, I would feel pretty confident that the information accurately reflects what most customers feel about that company.

So, as Nick says, take Garden Watchdog with a grain of salt, but it's likely to be your best single source of information available. Not taking advantage of Garden Watchdog, when you're not familiar with the company, would be asking for trouble.

Just for kicks, I decided to check out House of Wesley to see what others (not on Garden Watchdog) thought of them. I've never personally bought anything from them because I knew they were associated with other sleazy mail order businesses. Here's just a small taste of what I found:

Fellow Gardenwebbers give negative opinion of House of Wesley: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/neweng/msg071801595001.html

Better Business Bureau lists House of Wesley in their Consumer Alerts and gives them an "unsatisfactory rating": http://easternnc.bbb.org/WWWRoot/SitePage.aspx?site=66&id=adc68f40-8041-43f6-86ec-46fd55e6f4d1&art=2684

Multiple listings on multiple sites like the Ripoff Report:
http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/144/RipOff0144950.htm

Apparently Garden Watchdog was RIGHT ON TRACK! Nick, you must have just gotten very lucky. My search with Google shows that there are many unsatisfied customers of this sub-discount quality business with a pretty poor reputation.

I am a new gardener and have found garden watch dog to be very helpful. I have had a wonderful experience ordering from Burnt ridge nursery (2 orders) burntridgenursery.com , indianaberry.com (2 orders) and noursefarms (2 orders).

Good luck!

Seconding what everyone else said about using the garden watchdog.

I haven't ordered from the other companies others have listed, but I've only heard great things about them. The only one I can recommend that I've used myself is Raintree Nursery. I've ordered numerous things from them including a few lingonberries, blueberries, 3 bundles of strawberries, a peach tree, raspberries and blackberries along with a little merchandise.

In addition to this, my experience with their staff has been very positive. They've been very helpful answering any questions I've had, and when one of the plants I ordered was broken in shipping they replaced it for free, no questions asked. I had another order pending at the time and asked if they wouldn't mind shipping them together to save on shipping costs if possible, but it had already shipped. I'm sure they would've done it otherwise though. Other than that, everything's growing great. Even my peach tree has set a couple of fruit its first year :)

All this talk about Nourse farms makes me want to order something else!