Does your local/nearby Botanical Garden(s) have plant sales? There are two near me, one at a local College that specializes in regional Native plants. They have frequent plant sales to fund expansion of the Native plant Gardens. Many of them are propagated in their greenhouses, by volunteers, under the guidance of a retired Botany Professor. Another source of natives are Native Plant Society's. Our local Native Plant Society has a very active plant rescue schedule for construction and development sites. It has been a source of numerous Natives that are in my garden. We had one site of about 100 acres, that produced about 75-80 different species of garden worthy native plants, including many species of trees, shrubs, vines & 10 species of Ferns. Amazingly, I did not find a single exotic invasive plant on the site! We have recently initiated a program to propagate native plants to repopulate a local State Park, while at the same time, remove the invasive plants that displaced the original natives. I am also a longtime customer of Arrowhead Alpines. They offer so many unusual and difficult to find plants, that I can't resist. When I look through the catalog, an order is usually on the way within hours! Received this year's order from them about a month ago and every item is healthy and growing. Everything was in pots, except some Medeola virginiana pips, which have since emerged and are about 4" tall. Agreed, some are pricey, but having propagated plants for many years and experiencing the sometimes difficult and frustrating tasks, I can understand the reason they must command a higher price. Bob & Brigitta have a marvelous resource there in the frozen North(:Rb

I'm tardy to the party, but I wanted to make an input for anyone else to see this: Re: Dean Cook/Flytraps- A good 85% of my current collection is from Dean Cook, and I've NEVER had a problem with him. Patience is required, because he does have a day job, and on the website, it does state that it can take 7-10 days to process an order. I've had some difficulties with communication, but again, patience is required. They do get back to me eventually. Yes, sometimes the plants received aren't the best, but I do believe the season has alot to do with it. Since figuring out what I'm doing, I'm yet to lose anything he's sent me, and they've all grown nicely! I did lose one plant from them during shipping, and they sent me a replacement with the next order I placed. I wouldn't say they're out of the game yet, nor "gone bad". 4/5 Re: Lois Ochs/Raccoon Ridge-I found her on eBay, and purchased a Dana's Delight, Hummer Hammerhead, and 15 (received 18) lost-tag Sarracenia. The Danas, Hummer, and 16 of the rhizomes were all rotten! Talk about spotty communication, and when I finally heard back, they refused to reimburse me or send replacements because "plants are perishable". When they're received in such shoddy condition, I think the sellers should be responsible. It seems the only people that've received good things from her were physically at her nursery. Total crap, and I'll never order from her again. 0.25/5 Re: Sarracenia Northwest- This is where "you get what you pay for"- between the plants being potted and the associated shipping, it was hard on my wallet, but they are worth every penny. I guess people that don't know what they're doing are better off buying from them, but for me, it's just silly to buy anything from them that I could buy from Dean, and make flourish with a little TLC. 4.5/5 (.5 deducted for price) Re: KillerPlantShop- These guys are new on the scene, and they don't have a huge variety, but they've got great prices and quality which rivals Sarracenia Northwest. 5/5 Re: Kristi King/MKFarmsofMS- She's an individual grower with a busy life, but she ships orders within a week. I've found her prices to be very reasonable and her plants are always in very good condition. 4.5/5 Save for Lois, I've bought from everyone else atleast twice, so I have more than "one experience" to judge.

I'd like to find such a retail nursery, if such exists, as I more likely can find plants in the 3-5 gallon pot range, and mailorder nursery stock is often (but by no means always) smaller than that (though often bare root). And some things I have not readily found by mail order. I'd also like some plants not too easy to find by mailorder: for instance, Welder, Golden Isles, and Nevermiss muscadines; Waite and Potomac pears (just found a mail order source for the latter); and possibly a lot of things I don't even know about. Such nurseries seem to exist elsewhere in the nation, and still exist for citrus in Florida, and muscadines and blueberries in Georgia and North Carolina. But except for a nursery for fruits for the cooler elevations in the SEUS mountains I know of no other nurseries specializing in fruits in Georgia and the Carolinas. Another limited exception is the non-muscadine fruits carried by Isons. Such a nursery used to exist in the lower more typical part of the SEUS (Hastings in Atlanta) but to my knowledge no more.

We really are talking about two different creatures...general garden center vs specialty hosta grower. I agree with most of the comments about general nurseries. Most are boring and uninspiring. I rarely buy much from them, and even less likely to buy a hosta there. General nurseries usually buy in bareroot field grown stock or larger plugs, because growing TC liners to a retail size takes at least one full season. They can make more money growing 2-3 fast crops in a season with their space. And therein lies the issue of price...hostas are a relatively slow crop to produce. The longer it takes to grow a plant, the more it's going to cost. Never mind there is soooo much more cost in producing a plant, than the cost of the plant itself. Then factor in the hours spent hybridizing, collecting, cleaning, and growing seeds...and (ideally) years of evaluation...that's a whole lot of time and effort invested in a finished product that the consumer wants to pay less and less for every year. The box store growers make very low margins on large volume. Specialty growers just can not survive doing that. Expecting a specialty grower to conform to mass market prices is guaranteed death for the specialty grower. In the hosta world, it is these small, specialty growers that develop and bring to market the new, cool plants that you all keep saying you want. They need your support...and waiting for the end of the season sale is too late! moccasinlanding, in the past few years Q&Z has been introducing some of Van's plants. I can't say for sure, but I suspect Mark asked if he could put some of Van's plants into TC. From there, Q&Z sells the liners to hosta growers across the country and around the world. As for volume...not sure what an average run was for them...maybe 1000+....maybe much more. I do know some varieties are difficult to produce and were very limited (streakers, for example). Most TC contracts (a plant TCed exclusively for a retail grower) are probably around 200-500 plants. Here again, the larger quantity the lab produces, the cheaper the liners are. Most specialty growers can not sell through so many plants in a reasonable time frame. It seams the general perception the consumer has is that the specialty growers are filling their bank account from crazy margins we charge. Fact is, many growers are barely scraping by. By the way, Tony Avent shared his opinion and condolences on Q&Z in the September Plant Delights newsletter.