You are serious. OK, so here's another option, wholesale. Not mixed retail/wholesale places like Elgin Nursery, but not open to the public type places They'll say "Wholesale Only" and they mean it. Places like Arizona Wholesale. These can be the growers themselves or a place like MV but just for professional landscapers. Disclaimer: My experience is in CA, but I think it's the same here. Their hours are normally limited. I've never seen any kind of minimum purchase. Normally they have a price list they can give you, or email you one (how's that for easy comparison shopping). Many things aren't labelled very well so you have to know your plants, which sounds like you do. If they ask just say you're a landscape designer, there's no license for that. That's what I was and sounds like what you're doing too, just for yourself. Nothing shady about it, it's the truth. And I've been surprised that a designer is sometimes given an additional discount, higher than any other trade. Sometimes they ask for a business card. They're find if you don't use them. I never did. Have a business name ready, anything will do. Easiest is your name followed by "Designs". Perfectly legal, you don't have to register it unless you're actually selling a service which you aren't. You can at least look around. If you decide to buy you have to have a resale certificate. You need to either find someone who has one or get one. They're surprisingly easy and fast to get, free I think. No business license is required. Use your SSN as the business's federal tax id which is completely legal. You'd be a "sole proprietorship" which is a valid business. When you purchase you don't pay sales tax. You do have to send the sales tax amount directly to the state, very short form. In CA I only had to file the form when I actually had something to pay in that quarter. The wholesaler reports the purchase so they already know how much you owe, so the form was basically, "Plants $XXX.XX". OK, now that I typed it all it seems complex. But it's pretty easy. And the certificate gets you into all kinds of other places too. For example in retail title stores I've gotten up to a 25% discount as a Designer. That was better than $500 one time. All perfectly legal, no scam. Your purchase is reported to the state, you do have to pay the sales tax. Just a way of getting at a better selection of plants...normally. And by selection I don't just mean a lot of plants. I mean plants in stages you can't find at any retail place. And I've always liked the employees waaaaay better. Many times you'll be talking to the owner, or employees who've worked there for years. They're 100% focused on plants. No wind chimes, pots, etc. None of them are sales people. No hovering. When ready for your selections they'll normally have a cart and pick them up for you.

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.

Based on what I have seen here the blue cedar will have a stake due to a deformed rootstock being used, and the tops of the box are plenty big enough for their roots to be matted - the magnolia will not be the only one that needs work at planting. With deciduous magnolias it appears you want to be subjecting them to root damage only when they are in leaf. Otherwise they may just sit there and rot. When a potted plant has the correct proportion between top and roots the top looks undersized to many consumers. This and growers not keeping up with potting on anyway results in under-potted stock being the general situation in the retail setting. Loosening up the outside of a matted root system is not too hard to deal with; corkscrew roots, hard woody root turnips and other severe deformities in the center of the root mass, right below the crown - resulting from stock being left in bands, liners or 4" pots way too long at production facilities - is a different story, and just the thing to spoil a woody specimen after it has grown for many years and made a nice big top. Tall, fast growers like cypresses or pines may even break loose and go over, when part of the root system is caught up in going around and around - instead of all of the main roots immediately leaving the vicinity of the trunk and radiating outward to their full lengths and forming a good anchorage. This post was edited by bboy on Tue, Dec 31, 13 at 16:38

I am with you on the mockery/immitation thing, that would really get under my skin. Since I am the only gardener in our neighborhood (everyone else 'landcapes" if you know what I mean) - I get violent when they tell me I need to trim my rosebushes, or the clematis should be removed since they don't flower all year like thier standard red geraniums (pelorgoniums, actually). I almost gasped when our neighboor asked me to cut down our 25 year old ashes since they are too big and shade the street not to mention drop too many leaves in the fall - I told him thats what trees are supposed to do. I don't cut his cats head off whenever it S^iT$ in the yard - right? I would do the following to mess with them: 1. plant poison ivy on their side of the house (ok probably not the right tihng to do but funny) 2 find out what they hate and buy several of them (pink flamingos, trolls, Greco-Roman statues, Madonna) everyone has their lawn ornament-thing they hate. 3. I like the idea of switching nursery tags (yellow to red rose, etc.) I would plant sedum and name it something long and latin that cannot be translated....Pittospiulinium macrohepatodoethenuem var. albicans sans purpurea 4. plant a prairie, they sound like control freaks and would not like a prairie since they are hard to replicate tell them the next plant you plant is a division from a friend and you have no idea of the name.