STAR branded roses are hard to come by. Their website has a list of nurseries that carry them by zipcode. I have never seen them at wally world, lowes or home depot. We only have 1 nursery here in Birmingham that has a good selection.

Here is a link that might be useful: My Garden Blog

Star only sells to local garden centers where the markup, at some places, is beyond belief. One such place wanted a whopping $29.99 for a potted Cinco De Mayo while the rest were in the low to mid $20s. I asked the owner why so much and he said, "that's because it's new this year."

$29.99 seems to be the minimum going price in my neck of the woods for new varieties of potted roses at nurseries, regardless of it coming from Weeks, Star, JP, etc. I thought of picking up a Yellow Brick Road--never heard of it, but it's all over my local nurseries this year (no more Julia Child anywhere, I guess that was sooo '07)--but not at thirty to thirty-five dollars.

To defend the nicer nurseries they employ people who are plant knowledgeable and I am sure they make more than minimum wage or a bit higher as Home Depot and Lowe'e employees make. They need a higher markup.

It seems to me that Americans don't appreciate what service and knowledge cost.

Around here one nursery charges $30 for a rose (any rose) while the other nurseries charge around $20. I always buy from the $20 nurseries where the employees are just as knowledgeable and very nice. One of the cheaper nurseries is the only place where I've even had someone explain how to plant the graft under the soil. The other nursery I had an employee check their invoice to see if they had gotten in a particular rose and then we hunted it down in the back lot. So no, good quality roses and good service don't have to cost that much. But I'm not about to buy a rose at Home Depot no matter how cheap it is if I can find it somewhere else. I want all of my local nurseries to stay in business, even the expensive one (since they do get in some plants that I can't find anywhere else).

I'm not about to buy a rose at Home Depot no matter how cheap it is if I can find it somewhere else. I want all of my local nurseries to stay in business,

*** That ought to be carved in stone somewhere and placed where we all need to see it every day.

Jeri

Amen, Jeri.

...what Jeri said.

BC:)

I bought my Red Eden and White Eden as Star roses from my nursery this spring. I believe they were $23. All of my nursery's roses are $19.99-$22.99.

"I'm not about to buy a rose at Home Depot no matter how cheap it is if I can find it somewhere else. I want all of my local nurseries to stay in business,"

I would have agreed with that a month ago. Now I hope they go under. I live in New Haven, CT and had Vinny's Garden Center sell me a rose with mildew - telling me it was fertilizer spray and wash off - and then get really nasty when I called them on it. Van Wilgens is expensive beyond belief and when I took back a plant I just bought that had hatched out about a billion hungry baby caterpillars they blamed me!

Now, I support NatureWorks, our one and only organic nursery and buy a lot at Lowes where its cheaper. If nurseries want our support they need to stop ripping us off.

Why don't you go to the source and ask them?

Well along with my remark..there are good private nurseries and bad ones. I think the economy has something to do with alot of this as well.

I love Home Depot. I love Lowes. But I do not ever buy roses there. PERIOD. I will say I am blessed to have a few places to buy roses and Raft Island Roses. Maybe I wouldn't be so picky if I lived in an area that didn't have nice nurseries.

The good private garden centers around here sell potted J&P, Star, and Weeks for anywhere from $22 to $24 each.

No problem ever wanting to buy a rose from Lowes or HD...all they have in this area are Knockouts and carpet rose.

Liz

I've found Weeks, Star, and JP roses at all the big box stores at discount prices. It has more to do with timing than anything else.

The easy answer to your original question is that big box stores place market caps on all the items that they sell. All too often this means that they won't sell something unless it is cheap enough to buy from a wholesaler where the big box stores can make a 25-100% markup and still fall within the economical tastes of their customer demographic. They will also often under price similar items with little to no markup if there is competition down the road. There philosophy is that they can hold their marketing breath longer than the small operation down the street until it breaks the mom and pop shops. This is an aggressive tactic which has made companies owned by the likes of the Waltons (Wal-Mart) so successful. Once the competition has been run out of business they change their market line-up in order to rationalize the newer higher prices. We consumers are at the heart of the problem when we only want to pay $5 for a rose that cost significantly more to grow, graft, fertilize, water, spray, yank out of the ground, hose down and trim, tag, deliver, and pot up at a local nursery.

From experience I can tell you that most roses sell, at wholesale price (bare root), around 4-9 dollars depending on how new or rare the variety is (demand) and popularity (supply). All growers will sell weaker plants in a grab-bag style at a lower price ($2-$3) with no tags. These are the roses that most big box stores sell to the public as "Promo" rose bushes. The mark-up is low, but it gets customers in to buy complement items that sell at much higher mark-ups (such as potting soil, sprays, fertilizer, etc.).

Now, I'm all for defending and supporting the local mom and pop shops, but let's take a look at what they do...There are two m&p nurseries by my house that I frequent. One will sell me a Nelson's Florida rose bush at $25-$30 dollars while the other sells it to me me for $16. Both have employees and owners that don't have much more of a clue on how to keep a rose healthy (or what a healthy rose looks like, for all that matter) and both basically sell the same product. I know that the rose wholesales for around $10 and must be ordered in sets of five with a minimum total order purchase of around 100 rose bushes. In this case I will go out of my way and first see what the m&p nursery, that sells roses for $16 (a whole $6 mark-up), is selling before I ever spend any of my money at the m&p nursery that is selling the same roses for $25-$30 (a $15-$20 markup (that's more than 100%!)). The m&p nursery pays their employees the same salary, maybe even less, as the big box stores. They also are selling you on a false idea that what they sell is any better than what you can find at big box stores (of course you have to know for yourself what you are buying and weigh its value for the $ for yourself based on your experiences). So why support a business that keeps quality roses out of some people's economical reach?

I apologize for this disertation-esque posting, but the us-agianst-them mentality gets old, especially when no one is to blame more than we consumers that demand everything to be much cheaper than its equal value in other countries, but, alas, that only leads to another discussion that I'll hold for someone elses thread, when it becomes available.

Adrian.

Adrain, I guess it depends on your nursery..maybe geography. In my case, there are several nurseries that are knowledgable about plants. Lots more than a part time Home Depot store. I guess I disagree with your idea that the Mom and Pop employees are no better than the person who stocks the nursery in summer and the Xmas lights in the winter.

We have a huge dilemna here in the US..we want cheap prices on things that are made in China and then Americans don't have jobs.

This is my personal crusade..As Americans all we can do is be watchful of where we spend our money. Plus, if small nurseries go out of business then we are all stuck with Wal mart or Home Depot. I shudder to think

Thanks for the info Adrian. It was quite informative!

Since I grow mostly old roses I rely on nurseries like Vintage Gardens online to supply most of my roses. Roses like Abraham Darby, Ebb Tide and Julia Child I bought at our local nursery where people are friendly and knowledgeable. I will however admit to buying Betty Prior at HD. I hadn't seen this rose anywhere else locally and there it was. What's a person to do? And I did buy Angel Face there one day. HD is on the way between home and where I work and I'm always trying to conserve gas. Luckily they almost never have anything I'm interested in. I have, however, sworn never to set foot in Walmart, and I will have no problem adhering to that.

Ingrid

We have alot of good nurseries here but the really nice ones are at least 20 miles or so away. The one nusery about 20 miles + away likes to brag about how great they are and that customers drive 2 hours or so to come and shop there.

I love the nursery but every time I go there they have someone follow you around and "help". I try to be polite and say that I am fine looking on my own but when I finally get them to go, someone else is right there ready to "help" again. I have spent over two hours there when I was just there to pick up a few plants I had set aside to come and get. I honestly have never seen anything like it. It is borderline annoying. I guess so annoying that I have not been back and try to avoid it when shopping for plants. I am not blaming the staff, it is obvious they are told by the owner that this is what they are to do.
I would like to shop in peace with the occasional, "Are you finding everything okay?", or someone there to ask that is knowledgable and helpful IF I need assistance.

On the other hand, there is a ma and pop nursery that is like an hour away that is a great nursery that has plants that I can't find elsewhere. We went there on Mother's Day when we were passing through and I could not believe how high the prices went up in a year. They had 3 climbing roses sitting by the curb, nothing extra large or special, and they wanted $75 each for them! I could not believe that, I was thinking maybe $30-40, tops! And that was not it, my husband and I walked around the nursery and looked at prices. We found a jasmine scraggly looking in a 1 gallon pot for $16. We had purchased 3 large very healthy looking ones in a 3-gallon pot last summer for $15 a piece. Just amazing how much everything went up.....

I buy roses anywhere I see them around here. I do think the best place is a local nursery though. I bought angel face from walmart and it is black spot city. It's the only one I have that has it. I was told it was prone to have it anyways but I am trying to cure it. the nursery roses in my area are from around $16-$25 dollars. My favorite nursery sells tham for 24.99 with no tax. I like them because they have roses that no one else here carries.

There is one locally owned, very nice, nursery in my town, about three blocks from where I live.

It is locally owned and provides full time jobs for friendly and knowledgable local people. The owner is a contributor to many local charities, and will often donate items to charitable auctions.

This nursery offers a complete line of organic gardening products which do NOT come from a Monsanto owned company, and offers many free seminars on many aspects of gardening.

Unfortunately, their prices are not in my budget.

My two body bag purchases this year, not-Gold Medal and not-Tropicana, turned out to be mislabelled and virused. Even at $3. per bag, this not a savings when I consider the costs of fertilizer and water. I have about given up on big boxes,

In contrast, my extra cheap sale roses from Vintage ($5.50 each during the $2 of sale in Feb., are all healthy and performing splendidly.

Locally owned nurseries mostly, I think, cater to the upscale market, which is where the money is. We need to keep in mind that the locals don't get those special tax deals which local govts. like to hand out to large companies.

This year, I think it is important to support which ever of the mail order nurseries is one's favorite.

Another alternative is rose rustling at abandoned houses, for which I make no apologies, as those houses are sitting empty while many are still being expected to pay half or more of their incomes in rent.

Dmama..$75.00? yikes. That is a over the top rip off. Nast, my nursery also has free classes all summer long. I spend there..but also I shop for fertilizer and so on at Home Depot.

I think the online rose places are a great value. I appreciate those folks so much

For some reason, the most expensive nursery has the best and cheapest fertilizer. They are the only place that carries the big bag of Rosetone and it was a very reasonable price. They also had Milorganite (which I use on the lawn) very cheaply and Home Depot didn't even carry it.

There's no way I'd pay $75 for a rose. They aren't daylilies :)

Athe, maybe your nursery is happy to make 20% markup instead of 50% or whatever...