Mxk3, I fully understand your point. I'd spend MORE at the locally-owned nurseries in my area if they got plants in earlier. I live in a "banana belt" in my area--my zip code runs from hardiness Zone 7 (my neighborhood) to hardiness zone 5 less than 5 miles away. That's true of the entire Reno-Sparks area. The result is that I want cold-hardy annuals like pansies and snapdragons far earlier than most gardeners in this town because I *can* plant and enjoy them earlier in the year. Locally-owned nurseries, quite sensibly, don't carry them that early. They bring the plants in once most gardeners in the area can safely plant them out. That's a full month later than I can. So I turn to the big box stores, where plants are brought in only as loss leaders, early enough for my planting needs, but far too early for most. I don't rely on big-box nurseries, not by a long shot. They simply don't carry enough "cool plants" to satisfy my compulsive need for chlorophyll. Once the growing season is well under way, my buying shifts from the big-box stores to the local nurseries. I'm an equal-opportunity buyer. Yes, I have a favorite nursery, and I make a point to stop there first on plant-purchasing expeditions. Then, even if I found and bought what I set out to buy, I go on to the other nurseries, just as long as I'm out, and just in case there's something else I'd like to have. The big box stores get included in my rounds, but they don't constitute the bulk of my purchases at that point. I also buy a lot of my plants via mail order, because in spite of good variety at local nurseries (taken in aggregate), there are still many plants I can't obtain locally. An inventory of plants I'd consider "fairly complete" would run to the entire Forestfarm catalog, an old (pre-Burpee) Heronswood catalog, a Plant Delights catalog, and a Bluestone Perennials catalog, all in one location. I'm sure I'm forgetting several vendors in my wishlist, but I think you can see how I crave far more variety than the local nurseries (even including big box stores) can reasonably supply. The other shortcoming (and again, it's a perfectly sensible shortcoming) of the locally-owned nurseries is their heavy reliance on plants proven completely hardy in my area. I tend to be an experimental gardener, perfectly content to accept a fair amount of winter kill, and content to accept far more failure than the average garden center customer. Selling plants hardy only to Zone 7 would tend to result in a great many unhappy customers at the local garden centers. So again, I rely on the big box stores, with their clueless buyers and loss-leader philosophy, to supply me with quite a few "experimental" plants. Some of the experiments have been splendid successes, but most have ended up in the compost heap after the second killing frost. I don't expect local garden centers to cater to a lunatic like me. In the end, I'd love to shop exclusively at the locally-owned nurseries in my area, but that would limit my choices of plant material and delay some of my spring container plantings. It isn't fair to expect those nurseries to cater to my quirks and risk tolerance. The locally-owned nurseries can't afford to take the risks I can, and I don't expect them to do so. I shop at the local independent nurseries as much as I can, and I'll have to leave it at that.

yes, i really do want to be taken seriously. if you haven't already, please take a look at the links i provided. it's something that, honestly, i didn't think much about until i saw that frontline episode about wal-mart. and then i did a little more research --- and began to catch-on that this box store business model is a scam. you know the saying: "if it seems too good to be true, it probably is"? well, after looking into a bit, i began to realize, that yeah, the bargains being offered are being subsized through other means. five of the ten riches americans are walton (wal-mart) family. and, yet, in spite of this --- the _taxpayers_ are expected to subsidize their employees. and communities often use all sorts of packages to lure the box stores to open their doors. who pays for these packages? the community. and then the money spent in the box store flows out of the community, and into the coffers of the corporation. i know, it's not apparent at the check-out that you're actually paying more --- but you are. and maybe it means cuts in education --- while a new road is being built to the newest box store location. or maybe it means cuts in funding the education of children --- while more box store employees enroll to receive public assistance such as healthcare. and while you, personally, may have more to spend elsewhere --- the employees of the box store have less. the employees that manufacture the products sold in box stores have less (as their jobs move overseas to keep the lowest prices the boxstores demand). our landscapes are ripped-up and destroyed with new box stores. and then the box store closes, and builds a bigger box in a new location. and maybe it means the transformation of our downtowns, into ghost-towns. the local businesses close. the irony is that maybe a portion of _their_ taxes were being used to subsidize the box store. i think we need to be careful that we are not exchanging the heart & soul of our community for the pursuit of lower prices (which, we ultimately subsidize with our tax dollars). i know you don't really notice it, and you see the lower prices, and think it's a good deal. i used to think like that, too. but the more i've looked into it, the more i've started to catch-on to how this is really a scam. --robbie--

I agree that it depends entirely on the store, the manager, and to a lesser degree, the rest of the help. My local HD is above average for both selection and plant care. (Meaning they generally keep them watered and looking reasonably healthy until they are sold.) Labels are another matter. MOST of the time they are accurate, sometimes not so much so. But the Lowe's is worse. I have been in there when fully half of the perennials were sitting under big signs announcing annuals for sale. This included Mexican sage (salvia leucantha) and Mexican heather (the cuphea). Now most of you know that these are grown as perennials down here, though I suppose it is possible they might be annuals way up north. My local Lowe's DOES have a much nicer selection of garden art, pots and birdfeeders, pond supplies and the like. But it's catch as catch can on how the plants might be looking, and as I say, the labels are usually WAY off. The SuperTarget near me does an above average job, too. They insist on labeling ALL salvias as salvia coccinea, even the little squat red bedding salvias (which I think are salvia splendens or maybe elegans?) and are guilty of other mislabeling, too. But their plants usually look really healthy, and they often have good buys on things like salvia guaranitica and other less common annuals and perennials. They have gorgeous begonias (the fancy leaved ones) and last year had fantastic coleus. The perennial kind. Our WalMart needs Dustin Hoffman in his Rainman role out front...he can just substitute WalMart for K-Mart and be right on the money, if you remember the line. I hate that store. Crowded aisles, messy displays and poor labeling...and that's before you get to the Garden Center, which is worse. That about sums it up for the big boxes in my area, as far as I'm concerned. I shop HD & Target for bargains and/or common plants, since I'm in those stores often anyway, and then I hit the local nurseries for more interesting (and more expensive) things. Marcia

Ahhh! The eggs in one basket syndrome strikes again. Again, we wouldn't have this 30 years ago with thousands of little mom and pop hardware stores selling a few plants from a bunch of different suppliers. Now Walmart nurtures/persuades some big conglomerate to grow six zillion plants and supply the whole chain as well as other chains because they can do it for less. And Bingo... Now was that worth the few pennys saved Walmart? Good luck selling them next year!