Hi, all, Yeah, Moon Valley is bizarre. I just went there (Tatum/101) 2 weeks ago in search of an Ocotillo with a decent root system. As with every other time I've been to this location, NO ONE knows anything, they all sit in the front of the entrance like a bunch of used car salespeople, and now they tell me that, like used car salespeople, they get paid COMMISSION. lol It took me THREE different people before I found one who knew what an ocotillo even was (I'm not kidding), and then when I said I wanted to check out one more place, the young man (nice enough, but knew virtually nothing about the plants, by his own admission) started making offers to me. At first, he said it would cost $70 to deliver (I live 2 miles from them). I said no. Then, he said, well, if you buy it from me today, I'll deliver it myself in my own truck. Huh???? He REALLY pushed for the sale to the point that I found it difficult to get out of the lot. Bizarre, more than usual. I've never heard of paying nursery people commission...not a great idea, but then, they can, just like the car dealers do, hire TONS of salespeople who know nothing, and pay them straight commission. So what if they don't last? The company loses nothing...except customers. They must be playing the numbers more than ever these days. A few years ago, a friend of mine ordered and paid upfront for some plants from them, about $700 worth of various shrubs and trees, and then, before anything was even gathered up at the nursery let alone delivered, he was told by his HOA that he couldn't plant any of them. Well, he called MV and of course thought that they could easily pop back the money he paid onto his credit card, since MV had done nothing yet. To his shock, they said NO, and that they could only give him a credit FOR 90 DAYS only. lol Ridiculous. He lost his $700. All this being said, I think with MV, it really depends on which location you are going to. The one near me is not a great idea. If you know EXACTLY what you want, are well-versed in EVERY aspect of that plant, can haul it away yourself, then you might go for it. If you are truly shopping and need expert advice, go to a different location. I ended up, of all places, getting the Ocotillo at Lowe's...had the nursery manager call me the moment the new, fresh ones came in, with nice root systems. After one month, it's already leafing out!! Buyer beware.... AZJ

Sandy, I would not have high hopes about Greenleaf's testing of the hosta. Their plants, their lab, their ballpark. Except that the product is perishable, it could be shipped again elsewhere. Only, I am pessimistic enough about big business and big corporations to feel that the rep who picked them up dropped them in the trash and will get someone in the lab to fix up a dummy report, sight unseen. You are a temporary inconvenience to them, and I bet they have an approved method of dealing with types like you. (roll eyes) Yeah, activists like us are just like the environmental activists and get about the same amount of respect because what we want them to do is BAD FOR THEIR BOTTOM LINE ON THE SHORT TERM. It is the short term that they care about. This month, this quarter, not their reputation for sure since they can control that with some good publicity and crossing official palms with the OTHER green stuff. (oops here comes that pesky computer fly again. or is it one of those tiny drones?.....just because I'm paranoid does not mean they are not out to get me.) :)

We lost a place (Conrads) here south of Tulsa to buy plants, but Carmichaels in Bixby still has great selections even if they are a lot more expensive than they were 5 yrs ago. They were .59 or .69 per 3-pack when I started buying them but are now about 1.39 give or take a dime. For a flat they are a much better deal. Atwoods has a pretty good selection of the common ones and they are really cheap, but many appear to have been treated with something that slows growth. If you got them, don't give up on them yet, because it may take another week or two before they take off.

I live in Tennessee and really wanted to deal with a Tennessee nursery. It's a good idea to deal locally, I assumed. Maybe not, though. The tnnursery website currently has "Fast Shipping Nationwide" scrolling across the top. So naturally, I thought this would work for me. I could have my guys here in maybe ten days and the trees would be here. Nope. Unbeknownst to you when you order, it takes them 7-10 business days to ship out an order (they don't tell you this until you inquire as to if your trees have shipped). That's two weeks, give or take, before the order is ever put on the truck, then you have 3-5 business days transit on top of that. That's normally not an issue, except when you voluntarily set the expectation that the shipping is "Fast" and "Nationwide". I didn't need the 'Nationwide' part. I'm right down the road. Fast would have been nice, but if they had simply told me prior to ordering what kind of time frame I was looking at, I probably wouldn't have minded so much. But they set the expectation at "Fast" repeatedly, and so looking at other nurseries, who ship within a couple of days of ordering, I thought they would as well. Turns out, their shipping isn't fast. At all. In fact, it's so not-fast, that it may actually be the slowest shipping nursery in the market right now. Without exception, every other nursery I checked into ships faster. They probably get your order correct, too. I ordered the BOGO Free apricot trees, paid for two, so should have received four. I didn't. I got two in total. I ordered trees advertised at 3'-4' tall, and received trees that were 33" tall. When I have ordered trees in the past from other nurseries, they're always very generous with the height of the trees they send you. Order a 5'-6' tree, and you'll almost always get on that's 6 1/2 feet tall. When I called to let them know, the sales department answered, and when I tried to tell them what was going on, I was told that they don't accept phone calls, and that I would have to email someone. So I began emailing them, and received a few responses back and forth over a few hours, which is super annoying to have to constantly stop and restart again. Once I left them a bad review on their own website, someone reached out to me and called. She informed me that they include the length of the root ball in the total height calculation. I was ready for this, having called TyTyGa, Fast Growing Trees, and another I can't remember, all of whom (not only took my phone call) confirmed for me that if a nursery is telling you that they calculate root ball length in overall tree height, that they're probably being not terribly up front with you. In the end, they agreed to send me the two trees that I was short, and credit me with, I guess, a partial refund for the trees that were short, which doesn't help me a lot, since I'm not interested in planting those trees because they're so small. I asked if they could ship out the trees that are the correct height for me, and was told that they would be happy to do so, but only after I sent the short ones back (I sent them photos of the trees with a measuring stick next to them to verify the issues for them), and that they wouldn't send the correct trees out to me until they received the rejected trees, nor would they send me a shipping label. I would have to pay for shipping. I was told that a manager would be reaching out to me, which never happened. My whole planting schedule is screwed up now. I've sent my guys home twice, and they've let me know that I'm back at the back of the list - four weeks out. You got me this one time, but you won't get me again. It's a shame that a local business doesn't care as much about me as I did them. That's how I see it. I'm not asking to be favored, but I am asking to be treated fairly, and this isn't that. FYI, I believe that TNNursery also owns or is owned by Tennessee Wholesale Nursery. Also, pay attention to the positive reviews on this site; they all sound like American names, but the diction is terrible and the English is either from the Indian subcontinent or from China. It seems as though all of the positive reviews have that in common. I'll never do business with them again.