Argh...so many threadlets to address. Kirimarie - I read your posts and obviously your opinions are valid based on your experiences. But, you never addressed what I specifically cited: walk around any average middle to upper income residential section of a randomly selected mid-to-large UK city. Walk around the same in the US. Anyone paying attention will spot huge differences in the amount of effort put into the personal landscapes, on average. It's not like I'm saying something crazy here that has never been said before. My parents aren't into gardens at all - I got the bug from my childhood neighbors who in a strange twist of fate were all avid gardeners. But every time they are in the British Isles they go on about how great the gardens are and my Mom will just take some pictures on a random street of people's gardens brimming with Fuchsia, Choisyas, Lilies, various vines, etc. A friend of mine who is also not at all into gardens went to Ireland with her erstwhile fiance and both said the gardens there were absolutely amazing. I'm sure they didn't visit botanical gardens, and by amazing they weren't talking about the fact there's a Phoenix canariensis in Cork. They were just talking about the gardens they saw in neighborhoods that were on their way to someplace. "I think the whole UK are "better" gardeners point of view is nonsense. " When you clearly spend more time at something, the world usually rewards you with the accolade of being "better" at it. The only scintilla of unfairness in what I say might be that, obviously, the climate makes it easier for the English to have the sort of gardens that they do than it is for most in the US. But that isn't to say it can't be done. I've visited private gardens in PA that are every bit as impressive as any I know of in England...(on a per unit land basis, of course...you can't really compete with Sissinghurst when your entire spread is the size of one walled garden there) but they might well be more work in PA. Doesn't have to be someplace moist: I once spent about an hour walking around the neighborhood near the Denver Botanic garden. I saw a couple very interesting private dry-climate gardens. Employees maybe? Probably just supporters who went to the plant sales. But most were just boring standard landscapes...blue spruce, some bland shrubs, whatever. This climate factor influences US regional differences, obviously, as gardengal noted. The whole west coast seemed a bit more gardenesque to me than the rest of the country, and I especially single out some parts of the Bay Area. Lawns... I agree in the west, the watering of ornamental lawns is absolutely a massive and foolish waste of water resources. (though I've gotten in huge arguments with some westerners about this...not online, in real life!) In the east, over maintained lawns are a different kind of environmental timebomb. Particular in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, where, years too late, the amt. of phosphorus in lawn fertilizer was finally restricted. But this doesn't mean lawns per se are the problem, it's just that people have a pig headed approach to them. I will never water my lawn. In the terrible summers of 2010, 2011, and 2012, it had periods of going brown. Big deal. I also don't fertilize it, because I don't need it to be a perfect shade of green, and fertilization would make it grow even faster than our often abundant rains do. Because I did some judicious broadcast spraying with trimec years ago, and - DUH - cut at the highest depth permitted by my Kubota MMM which is 4" on the scale but probably a little higher in practice - broadleaved weeds are so rare I can just spot treat them as needed. So, I am ecologically caring for my lawn. Many people are not, and too many people want theirs to look like a putting green. The house I posted, no, is not nearly the worst example of McMansion landscaping. Definitely not "horrible", in fact I would just call it average to mediocre. But the reason it's partcularly egregious is, sorry, someone who collects plants on such a massive scale, should by my estimation have known better. The formally trained person they hired (this I know from the real estate site where I snagged it) still got it wrong, which is actually more comical than some random local landscaping dude not knowing what he was doing. In fact, the university trained landscape architect producing something that pretty much says "local landscaping dude cramming plants in front so he can get the bill up to 25K". (thus feeding the wholesale industry beast which - to loop back - is the whole reason I branched out into this) It reminds me of the hilarious story of a mature Araucaria araucana - one of the only on the east coast - being cut down at a historic estate near Wilmington, DE, by a professional landscaper for "not looking English enough"(!). Seriously, you could not make up a funnier and truer anecdote about the ignorance of some in the US landscaping profession. It's priceless.

I had the two experiences with Plantsexpress. I have one more small experience, which is using their contact form recently to ask if they could get me a 36" box Swan Hill. I received no response, which isn't encouraging. I didn't ever get around to calling them. I'm assuming most people's experience with Plantsexpress is through the special order function at Home Depot. In general, I prefer to look at the specific material I'm buying and take it with me so I do understand your point. Two local nurseries have 36" box Wilsonii sitting there. My interest in a third olive is directly upwind of my pool so I wouldn't take the Wilsonii for free. My house had a large fruiting olive just like most of the houses on my street. Mine had to be removed due to the neglect it received before I bought the house. Most people have them sprayed so they don't fruit. Even in decline, mine made a big mess from the fruit. I bought the Wilsonii in 2003. I bought the Swan Hill from Plantsexpress in early 2013 so not quite 2 years ago. The Wilsonii flowers and produces pollen every two years or maybe three. Hard to tell as it took 4-5 years or so before it flowered the first time. When it flowers, it has pollen and develops fruit. If it has less pollen than the regular olives, I didn't notice. Hard to compare a a tree planted as a 24" box 10 years ago to the others that were planted as large trees 40 years ago. From your area, I wouldn't go to Fallbrook or Vista. I do because my parents and some friends live in that area. From your area, I would go to Camarillo area. If you are travelling long distance to a nursery, it is a great deal of work to buy large plants and not have them beat up by wind in a pickup or trailer.

If I were you, I wouldn't wait at all and would call your bank the first thing in the morning cancelling this transaction and follow all the steps that you were advised earlier for a debit card. I did a quick search on google images and the photo for this rose on their website is exactly the same as the photo on another website (rosomaniya.ru) but rotated by 90 degrees. This is very shady for any business and I think you should take all precautionary steps against potential identity theft. I don't know if this would happen, but better err on the side of caution. Hope all goes well for you and good luck. Edited: I wanted to remove the link to this other website, because frankly I wouldn't dare going there for it may also be an illegit website, but for some reason the link cannot be removed. I looked at it only at google images, so please don't go there.

@BenT (NorCal 9B Sunset 14) to be honest the reason i spent four hours at K&M and didnt get to all of the greenhouses is not many roses were blooming. I had to search by finding the ID tag of every rose I came across. They were partly in alphabetical order, but quite mixed around too. And i kept finding roses that were not listed on their website. If you call back in a month or so once the roses start blooming, Im sure he will be able to find the Evelyns. I saw at least four in a sea of thousands of green plants. There were only a few Judes. Once the roses start blooming it will help! Maybe you could get on a waitlist? Not sure if they do that or not..