I have weak knees for Campanulas. There are so many species and most do well for me in zone 4 and I love knowing where they come from all over the world. That the campanula form has found itself, evolved, drifted with the continants, all over the planet. There are some great cultivars of course but my favorites are the species.

Do you know the Botanical name for it? I think I have some smaller varieties of heathers in my rock garden. 8" to 12" a Calluna Vulgaris and Erica darleyensis, but I didn't get any heaths. What's the difference between a heather and a heath? After checking into it a little, it seems like my Erica darleyensis is a heath and the Calluna Vulgaris is a heather.

Graham Stuart Thomas is a well-known English author who wrote an excellent two volume reference, buttressed by additional books on roses, groundcovers, etc. Not a first pick, because of the English author and the lack of illustrations, but the two-volume set is fairly all-inclusive, so that when you finally have something you can look it up and know what you have. If you see them on sale anywhere they are worth picking up. For shrubs, I agree that Dirr is the man. Ignore him at your peril, but if you have his book, at least you will have been warned. I took him with a grain of salt regarding the eventual height of Allegheny viburnums, but he was absolutely right. He was right about pruning, too. I have an older set of two reference books on flowers that I especially love because it gives an excellent hand-drawn illustration of each, a good description of habitat, and a history of where each plant was first discovered, but it is temporarily packed away and I can't remember the name...maybe someone else will know. It may be out of print, but it should not be if it is.

Seems like a difficult business to be in some days. :-) I did a quick search on amazon and came up with this link and another at the bottom of my post. http://www.amazon.com/Operate-Financially-Successful-Landscaping-Business/dp/1601382286/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1279400638&sr=1-1-fkmr2 I would say find a business that is successful and see if you can pick their brain. We seem to be seeing a lot of nurseries going out of business, isn't that true? I would think it's expensive especially if you have to keep greenhouses going. I know Lexington Gardens went out of business a few years ago, and you could see it coming for quite a few years. I was told by someone in management that the cost of fuel to run the greenhouse became outrageous. I know the owner was older and started to have health issues too. As a potential customer, I like that you are inclined toward natives and would love an organic direction as well. I travel a distance to make purchases that are in line with those two basic ideas. I drive 50mins to the NEWFS to buy native, mostly organically grown plant material. I drive the same distance to purchase organic vegetable starts in the spring, in years I don't start my own. I travel to Maine and combine a day trip to justify doing it, to purchase popular perennial and annual 'plugs' once a year in early spring, because so many nurseries that are close to me don't offer a plug size and have just about stopped offering the old '6 pack' size. I buy tiny shrubs from Bluestone Perennials because no one local offers that size and it makes it really affordable. I think a lot of people buy from them because of that and their frequent sales and great customer service. I was going to suggest that if you could model your business on one that didn't need heated greenhouses, you might be ahead of the game. Don't know if that is possible. It would certainly cut your costs, but limit what you offer. Anyway, maybe others can offer their own reasons why they shop at one place or another and what they are looking for in a nursery. Here is a link that might be useful: So you want to start a plant nursery