The white peony is prettier than the pic, the angle and the sun were not right. It was labeled 'Primevere', but I'm not sure that is right. Chelone, I don't have an old fashioned Festiva maxima, but would like to have one. I had some in Idaho. I do have another double white variety, but it has no flecks. Here is the single that is blooming for me now : I really like these.The stamens get a lot more prominent, more like a mophead, only with stamens instead of petals. They do not get to looking like soggy rags when it rains. I thought that I have Bowl of Beauty,but if I do, it isn't blooming yet. It just may be one that the blasted voles has eaten the roots! That is apparently what happened to the Molly that Eileen sent me. I waited and waited for a sign of growth, and when it didn't appear I dug up the root...only there was no root left! It is beginning to look like the varmints are winning! You may be right about the skunk, but I haven't detected any skunk odor when the digging is going on. The is another batch of holes all across the front of our front flowerbeds and front porch this morning, and out into the yard. We do have armadillos. Kathy, I am sorry that you had to give up on growing Peonies. I had the same problem with Rhubarb. It grew great in Idaho, but I can't get it to do well here. I have been reading lots of favorable reports on Diamond Frost Euphorbia. I bought one before I had read about it. Here is a pic of it planted in a combo with my very first Strobilanthes: I'd like to get more of them if they are still available at the local nurseries or plant places. We have gone back to more seasonal temps. It was the mid to low 40s the past two mornings, and possibly lower tomorrow, but not frost...thank goodness. I have all my tender stuff out on the deck, and do not plan on bringing it back in !

Let me present a somewhat different viewpoint :-) I've worked in the nursery industry for several decades. Every retail nursery I've worked for had a 12 month return/warranty/guarantee policy but only on woody plants - trees and shrubs. Never perennials, annuals or houseplants. And other than producing a receipt (or verifying our customer database) to ensure the plant was in fact purchased at that nursery and bringing back the dead plant (or a photo if too large to remove and return), we never hesitated to refund or credit the customer regardless of the reason. Why? Because the actual volume of returns experienced by nurseries adopting this type of policy is less than 2% of total sales........IOW, a drop in the bucket in the larger scheme of things :-) And by adopting such a policiy the retail establishment gains far more in customer goodwill than it loses in refunded returns. FWIW, the vast majority of returns tend to be customer's fault (don't beat me up - it's true!!)with improper watering the number one cause. Next on the list is improper planting or just unsuitable planting. My current nursery does not warranty certain borderline hardy plants so they are excluded but sold with a warning that they may not be fully hardy. Buyer beware!! And there are limits -- if our records indicate we have refunded the same plant previously, we will usually refund again but with the firm caveat that next time it's theirs for keeps!! Since I do not buy mail order I really can't speak to their policies but I'd have a very hard time personally expecting anything bare root to be warranteed. It is just a very risky way of presenting and shipping plants under the best of conditions.

Just thought I would expand on what Christine said earlier about people driving up the price of online auctions and additionly what Mike has said. What is done by a couple of sellers mentioned thus far is that they pay as little as $5 to buy a 4" pot wholesale (This is also done by website sellers, but they offer a fixed price) and then either immediately or after growing them on for a season, they sell them at acution on ebay. Sometimes, a seller may have some stock plants of common nursery varieties the he grafts himself, but orders in the new plants he does not have stock plants for. So when we go into an auction, the value of that auction for a first year plant is in obtaining a very low price. Additionally, some sellers will ship at very reasonable prices, but others are much too high in my opinion. So when we drive the price of these often very small plants up, we pay nearly as much as we would from someone who sells maples though a hosted website (Wildwood, Mountain Maples, Eastwood). This is where I feel it is better to turn to a web-based nursery than persist with ebay auctions. Even those that have nurseries like Jherter and Nishikimaplesman choose to sell through ebay and the reason being is that more times than not, they will average higher prices in the auctions. Some will even fudge a bit to call a plant a two year tree when it is not. If we are going to spend $30-50 then we might as well establish with an online nursery that will guarantee their plants and is ethical enough to sell through a web-based business. As much as ebay wants us to feel it is a business, it is not! It can be enjoyable to buy from ebay in the winter when not much else is happening and I buy during the growing season also. But I also frequent local nurseries in Oregon. So in anycase, whether or not we buy from ebay, it is nice to have a balance between local sellers where we can go and see the trees and buying online. It is only in going to an actual nursery that we will learn about the plants and those that care enough to propagate them. Establishing an entire collection over ebay is something that I would not enjoy as I would miss the interaction with the growers and nurserymen who also love maples. Of course there are unfortunate areas of the country where local establishments are not accessible and thereby it is understandable to have to use online sellers only. There is something said for establishing relationships and I do not believe that will be done on ebay--it is about the money to be had by auctioning trees. As Mike said in different words, it is "Buyer Beware" and now with this thread, equally as interesting, "Seller Beware!" I have had equally good and bad experiences with almost every seller mentioned here so far, but I will say that Cedric (Bonsaibob) seems to know the most about maples and had the best communication practices--problem is that his enhanced photography seems to lead to a higher frequency of auctions where the price is driven up. There is no reason to pay those kind of prices unless we feel there is no other avenue to obtain the plant and we have to have it. MJH

I'm not sure about liners or Japanese maple seeds but they do have jiffy pots & things nurseries use, as well as bulk seeds. I've ordered from them twice with no problems. It's R.H. Shumway >>>>www.hpsseed.com. You can also try the following for seeds: lonniesbulkseeds.com vegetableseedwarehouse.com www.homeharvestseeds.com www.katzkuntrykuttins.com www.crosmanseed.com www.superseeds.com Hope these help! Good luck!